Make Me Roar - the business that counts Kirstie Allsopp as a fan

She said: “The highlight of my career was when I appeared on the show last year and won the toy category.”

Kate won with a crochet character a reindeer called Reuben.

Based in Eastbourne she set up her first online shop on Etsy in 2008 selling sock monsters, the business then was called Made By Kate.

She said: “I was living in Torquay and it was my a hobby alongside my main job as a retail interior designer

“I made a sock monkey for a friend and then went onto making sock monsters (far more interesting) and soon I had quite a lot so thought I’d better find them all homes.

“I started attending craft fairs which was enormous fun and my husband, Martin, set up my website for me.”

The business became Make Me Roar when Kate started to sell a range of sock monster making kits.

“I love to encourage people to ‘MAKE’ and my designs are bold, colourful and like to ‘ROAR!’ When I evolved the business into designing and selling crochet patterns, I felt the name still fit so I kept it.”

Kate now makes and sells amigurumi which are crocheted toys. A move into crochet came when she had a go at designing one of her sock monsters in crochet and found she was pretty good at it.

She said: “Since then I have designed a whole range of crocheted toys, from ballerinas to Vikings. I used to sell ready made toys but now I only design patterns so other people can make them.”

Crochet was always something that Kate wanted to do but it took until she came down with a bad case of flu which gave her the opportunity to just sit and do it.