Hooked on a Look

Crochet, needlework, and knitting have really taken off over the past few years in the fashion and craft industries, but for FARA FERGUSON-LUTHER, she’s been hooked for more than a decade.

Ferguson-Luther moved to the Wilmington area in 2013 after living abroad in Ireland and New Zealand and traveling all over Europe. While visiting Spain, she found her inspiration.

“I saw this crocheted bikini. It was all beautiful rainbow colors, and it was my favorite,” Ferguson-Luther says. “That’s what really inspired me to get started, and a friend of mine’s mom taught me how to knit when I was living in New Zealand.”

Her brand, Ferguson Soup (@fergusonsoup on Instagram), was an amalgamation of all of the items she was making and selling at the Carolina Beach Farmers Market – clothing, jewelry, candles – and the inspiration for the name stems from her family’s tradition of creating a big pot of soup of all the leftovers from their massive garden that didn’t sell.

“I had some crochet at the time, but what I loved to do was sew. I would get fabrics and old vintage sheets and repurpose them and make them into dresses and pants. I did that, and then crochet just kind of took over,” Ferguson-Luther says.

When she was pregnant with her first child, Ferguson-Luther says she went through a “nesting phase” and had a lot of free time, so she started making everything. “When I had my first, she was my muse. I made these little dresses, and she had a little bikini. It was adorable,” she recalls.

Around that time is when she started selling at the farmers market, and she thinks crochet might have been ahead of its time ten-plus years ago. She didn’t sell as much as she thought she would, and she attributes that to different fashion trends at the time.

“It would probably be better for me to do the markets now around the beach because there are more younger people and crochet is more ‘in’. But back then, ten years ago, it just wasn’t the demographic I needed at the time,” she says.

Today, she has found success with her Ferguson Soup line and makes everything from earrings to bikinis to kimonos, dresses, sweaters, purses, and a constant rotation of bags.

Her technique is just as diverse as the pieces she makes – she doesn’t use patterns and does a freeform style.

“I see something, I want to make it, and I just work it out,” says Ferguson-Luther. “My passion is trying to find something that’s a challenge for me, to remake that or to put my spin on it. And I love color, color makes me happy, and I like to use the brightest, craziest colors, and make sure every piece is different.”

In addition to selling at the farmers market for many years, she also sold her homemade goods at Majik Beanz Espresso, and when JAMIE JOHNSON opened Coharie Coastal Boutique, 120 North Lake Park Boulevard, in Carolina Beach three years ago, she told Ferguson-Luther that she wanted a line of her crochet in the shop.

“She (Johnson) has been so inspiring to me, and it’s great to actually make money, because it is expensive,” Ferguson-Luther says. “Your time is what is the most expensive thing when you’re making a piece.”

One challenge Ferguson-Luther has started to run into is finding quality yarn. She has gotten into making cardigans, and they require really fluffy yarn, she says.

“You want to use the most fabulous angora, but it’s hard to source it,” she says. “And when you order online, you can’t really feel it, you can’t touch it, so you don’t know if it’s the right thickness and texture.”

Hand-dyed yarn is optimal to use but expensive and in addition to the materials being hard to source, Ferguson-Luther keeps this in mind so she can price reasonably and keep her pieces affordable.

Her hope is that people will lean more toward and invest in artisan pieces that they really appreciate and move away from fast fashion because authentic crochet can’t be produced in a factory – it’s a custom art. She also doesn’t see it fading away anytime soon.

“You still see it on the runway; you see it on brand new TV shows – I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh. Look at her outfit!’”

And she’s even seen her pieces on the big screen. Johnson worked as a costume designer and has ties to the film industry. When Merv, a movie starring ZOOEY DESCHANEL about a couple that breaks up and shares custody of their dog was being filmed in Wilmington a few years ago, her big, crocheted dinosaur socks were featured in the opening scene.

“We were watching and waiting. We had no idea how long it was going to be in there, and it was pretty exciting to see it,” Ferguson-Luther says.

Ferguson-Luther plans to keep creating and crocheting pieces, and she loves every minute of it. “I enjoy it. It’s meditative, and it’s super calming,” she says. “It’s my outlet.”

To view more of photographer Madeline Gray’s work, go to madelinegrayphoto.com.

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