Pocket power: Crocheted toy may fly as newest craze

Hacky Sack, meet Frisbee.

Throw in some unwitting help from a third-grader and what do you get?

The Pocket Disc, a hot new indoor/outdoor toy that's portable, safe, versatile — and a whole lot of fun.

The story starts several years ago when Savanna Groft was in the third grade. "It's one of those schools where they do a lot of hands-on activities, and one of the projects was learning to crochet a trivet," said her father, Patrick, in a telephone interview from his North Carolina home.

Savanna's project ended up like what you'd expect from a third-grader. "She accidentally put too many drop stitches in the last row, so it kind of curled a bit. And then I think the dog ate a hole in it, and my mom stitched that back together."

But Savanna had made it, and the Grofts were proud of it and left it displayed on a table.

There it sat for about 1½ years, Groft said. Then one day, one of his friends, Erik Larsen, came over. "He picked up the trivet and threw it at me. I threw it back." The trivet glided, it floated, when it hit a drink can, it didn't do any damage.

"We looked at each other, and you could almost see the light bulbs go off over our heads. It was one of those 'a-ha' moments. We knew college kids would love it. We thought it was something that could be used indoors or out by kids, by adults, by anyone," he said.

They thought about calling their creation a Ph.D., to appeal to the college crowd, Groft said. "But some people wondered what it meant," so they decided to go with the more generic and descriptive Pocket Disc.

They also knew that Savanna couldn't crochet enough of the discs for retail sales, so they researched manufacturing and marketing possibilities. "We knew it looked kind of like the Hacky Sack and kind of like the tam hats that a lot of people wear."

Eventually, they came in contact with an importer in Colorado who had contacts in Guatemala. That was just what they wanted, Groft said. Getting the Pocket Discs produced through a Fair Trade Federation agreement was a way to give back to the global community.

"We now have about 250 Guatemalan women crocheting Pocket Discs and other handmade products. It's a supplemental, but important, income for them. Their husbands go to work in the fields all day," he said. But in a country where 75 percent of the people live below the poverty line, extra income can make a huge difference.