Dad’s knitted bikini made him famous!

Emily Beaver, 28, shares her story with Take 5:

Walking through the markets at a music festival in 2015, I was taken by the number of people wearing crocheted tops.

Each one seemed like a personal expression of its wearer and no two were the same.

“I’m gonna learn how to do that,” I declared to my friend.

At home, I got my hands on a crochet hook and yarn and started weaving as I followed YouTube tutorials.

I grew up with very artistic parents – my mum, Amy, 53, was an actress and my dad, Jeff, 54, was a lighting designer, so creative things came naturally to me.

After weeks of trial and error, I’d finally produced my first top – a multi-coloured mid-riff design which tied up at the back.

I was stoked to wear it to my next festival.

“I love your top!” one friend said. “Where’d you get it?”

“Made it myself,” I responded proudly.

Before long, all my girlfriends were asking me to crochet similar tops for them, then interest grew beyond my own social group.

With this new side-hustle on my hands, I launched a website to sell my designs online.

The future of my crocheting career was looking promising until a week later, I was in a car accident.

Luckily I wasn’t hurt, but my car was totalled, so I couldn’t continue my job delivering meals.

I need to move back with my parents, I thought.

It was a strange idea.

I was 27 years old and my parents lived thousands of kilometres away, but I wondered if the universe was trying to point me in a new direction.

In 2020, Mum and Dad happily welcomed me back.

We’ve always been close and shared loads of laughs just doing normal things like cooking dinner or watching movies so I was happy.

I took up an admin job at the local uni but kept my crochet business going on the side, making tops, hats and earrings.

Usually I modelled the items myself and posted the pictures on my website, but I was getting tired of being the only face on there.

“Would you model some tops for me?” I asked Mum one day.

“With pleasure!” she responded.

Given her acting experience, I knew she wouldn’t be shy.

I filmed as Mum strutted, spun and shimmied in our living room to RuPaul’s ‘Cover Girl’ wearing a crocheted top.

Then I posted the video to Tiktok and watched in surprise as it racked up tens of thousands of views and hundreds of enthusiastic comments.

She radiates pure joy, one viewer commented.

I sold out of all my tops in a few days.

“They love you, Mum,” I said.

“Of course they do!” she laughed cheekily.

I kept using her as my model and then I wanted to introduce the world to my dad, so over dinner one night I asked him to appear in a video.

“Sure, why not!” he responded.

I made matching rainbow tops for Mum and I and filmed a silly video with Dad sticking his head into frame to ask, ‘where’s mine?’

Viewers quickly commented.

You better make Jeff his top, wrote one follower.

Part 2 needed, wrote another.

Dad agreed and I filmed him in a checked crochet top with a matching hat.

Incredibly, it went viral, viewed by over two hundred thousand people around the world.

Your dad is adorable! One person commented.

If he models on your website your orders will go up, wrote another.

That thought I’d had after my car accident really was the universe pointing me in a new direction – a career with Mum and Dad!

After that, they both helped me come up with creative ideas for future videos.

“How can we one-up ourselves,” I queried.

“Why don’t I pose on the roof!” Dad suggested.

As a building contractor, he didn’t hesitate getting up there in one of my tops while I filmed from below.

Jeff be careful, one follower wrote, we can’t lose you!

It became clear that viewers were just as interested in my parents as they were in my crochet tops.

I’m really sad my family isn’t like this, one follower commented.

So our videos no longer focussed only my crochet but on our general family antics too.

There’s one of us dressing up as Hugh Hefner and two Playboy bunnies for Halloween.

I was Hefner!

In another, we told each other our pet-peeves, for the world to see.

“Jeff, when you get exhausted you blow puffs of air out like this,” my mum vented, demonstrating with her mouth.

“Well it’s unavoidable!” my dad contended.

This particular family mediation session has been viewed almost four-hundred thousand times!

In fact, our TikTok has become so popular, receiving over 47 million likes, that I’ve quit my full-time job to make videos with my folks for a living.

Social media platforms pay us for producing popular content and advertisers can pay to use our videos to promote their brands.

Crocheting is still my little side business.

My poor hands are getting sore trying to keep up with the demands so I’ve limited myself to making the custom orders that really interest me.

Could you make a bag with an eye on it? one follower recently requested, I can’t pull off those tops like your dad can.

People love that my parents and I aren’t afraid to laugh at ourselves and with all the attention our videos are getting, its like we’ve got our own reality show.

It’s just us in stitches – in more ways than one!

For more visit @lovebeav on Tiktok or lovebeavcrochet.com