five questions for the alums behind meyer lemon crafts

friends forever

five questions for sffs alumni— and small business owners with an environmentally conscious mission— emma chongo & quin chaiken hamilton ‘19

For Quin and Emma, the pandemic provided an opportunity to start an exciting and sustainable collective with a close group of longtime friends (including fellow Class of 2019 members Micah Brown, Annika Peterson, and Aila Peterson). These artisans give found materials new life and themselves a meaningful creative outlet with their beautiful designs.

1) How did Meyer Lemon Crafts start? Who is involved and what does the business do?

Meyer Lemon Crafts started in 2021, when I (Quin) taught myself to crochet, knit, and sew during the pandemic and fell in love with crafting. I started sharing my crafts on Instagram and with friends, and was encouraged by several people to sell them. In October, I reached out to my friends to see if anyone wanted to join me, and signed up for a booth at a market hosted by Sunset Mercantile with fellow SFFS alumni Micah Brown and Annika Peterson. We became a small craft collective and named ourselves Meyer Lemon Crafts. Since then we have sold at three in-person markets, grown to eight members from different schools (including SFFS alumni Emma Chongo and Aila Peterson), and launched a website. From the very beginning we committed to using only second-hand, recycled, or scrap materials in an effort to be sustainable and save materials from going to waste. We love turning unwanted items into new and exciting products with a wide variety of crafts, including crochet, knitting, tie-dye, sewing, jewelry-making and book folding. Some of our most popular products are crochet sheep hats, knit strawberry beanies, and geode tie-dye T-shirts. –––––––––

2) What inspired you and your friends to launch Meyer Lemon Crafts? What’s the mission of the business?

We are all very creative people and saw this as a great opportunity to turn our hobbies into something unique and exciting. We had so much fun at the very first market, connecting with people in the community and seeing people’s joyful reactions, and we wanted to keep doing it. Our vision is to generate joy, creativity, sustainable action, and camaraderie through crafts, and we’re doing that by creating a collective of artists who create sustainably and support and inspire each other. The communi-

Meyer Lemon Crafts sets up shop at open air markets around the Bay Area and online—you can check out their latest pieces at meyerlemoncrafts.square.site.

ty and the art are definitely more important than the sales. ––––––––––

3) What’s been your favorite part of starting this business?

Meyer Lemon Crafts has brought me closer with my friends. It’s something that we all come together to create and I’ve met a lot of awesome people through it as we’ve grown. I also love seeing people’s smiles when they find something they love amongst our creations. ––––––––––

4) What are your hopes for the future of Meyer Lemon Crafts?

My hope is that our crafts continue to impact people in meaningful ways. I hope that we can inspire other artists to find environmentally-friendly ways to craft, and show people how fun sustainable fashion can be. I would love to do some more in-person markets this year, and potentially expand to include more members and types of crafts. Meyer Lemon Crafts will continue to change as its members graduate high school and spread apart, but I don’t ever plan to stop creating. I see this as something I will continue for a long time, wherever I am and in whatever form it may take. ––––––––––

5) What did you learn or experience as a student at SFFS that may have influenced you in launching and running your business?

The very name of our collective comes from our time at SFFS. In middle school, my friends and I would spend Wednesday lunches in the library with Suzanne, sharing art, music, and snacks. Suzanne often brought little meyer lemon cups (miniature tarts) for us, so we called ourselves the Meyer Lemon Cups. When we started this collective, we chose the name Meyer Lemon Crafts because in many ways it was a continuation of that group. I think it is a great testament to SFFS that we are all still friends and making things together. Our values of sustainability, collaboration, and community are also true to the SFFS spirit. •

People can find/contact us here: meyerlemoncrafts.square.site / meyerlemoncrafts@gmail.com / instagram: @meyerlemoncrafts

Do you know an SFFS alum who you think we should profile in our “Friends Forever” column? Please let us know by reaching out to akinney-moe@ sffriendsschool.org. Thank you!