http://www.crochetnow.co.uk | 21Interview
First up, tell us a little about
yourself and your everyday life
Hi! I was born, and have lived all my life, in
Bratsk, Russia. It is an ordinary small town,
we get lots of snow and proper Siberian
frost here for about fi ve months of the year.
I have been married for nine years and we
have a six-year-old daughter. My family
and my work are the most important things
to me.
How did you fi rst come to
design these amazing dolls?
My dolls take up a huge part of my life,
kind of like a ‘real job’. I have always loved
designing human characters, ever since I
was a child. When we were kids, my sister
and I would make a lot of paper dolls and
play with them. I had my own character
that I invented, it was teen girl and I drew
her over and over again in various outfi ts.
I haven’t actually yet created a doll based
on her, but one day I’m going to refresh
my memory about her and it will be very
interesting, personal project for me!
My favourite and most important part
about these games was always creating the
characters, which I have carried with me to
this day.
About eight years ago, I became interested
in amigurumi, and some of the fi rst things I
crocheted were cute animals and cartoon
characters. I had a go at making maybe one
or two simple amigurumi dolls too, and I
never used a pattern for any of my projects,
I always made them up myself.
In 2014, I discovered Instagram and I got
a lot of inspiration from other crochet
doll makers. I dreamed of creating my
own unique doll and I gave it a go. When I
started it was diffi cult to achieve the look I
wanted. I was very upset, almost too upset
really looking back, but it was important
to me to get this right. I remember one
time it got to a point that I was in tears in
frustration, my husband looked at me and
said, “Why do you keep trying the same
thing? Why not try the new one differently?”
I stubbornly sighed and said “OK you’re
right.” I started to crochet, saying to myself,
“I have to leave all previous attempts, try to
listen to my heart and do it in a new way”.And I managed to do it! I made a new doll
in less than two days and I was so happy
because I really liked it!I wanted to share my happiness with the
whole world, and I posted my doll on
Instagram. I really hoped someone would
like it too and I continued to do new work
in this style. People really liked what I did!
Soon, I got a lot of followers, and a lot of
people from all over the world wanted to
buy my dolls. The problem was, I didn’t
know what price would be acceptable
because I love to make my dolls, but with
the time they take, it’s diffi cult to put a
value to that. But I decided perhaps my
followers would like to decide how much aWe all love amigurumi and crocheted toys, but have
you seen the intricate world of crocheted dolls? Growing
in popularity on many crocheters’ Instagram feeds, we
spoke with Yulia, the designer behind mint.bunny to
learn more about this amazing crochet art
http://www.instagram.com/mint.bunny
Any little thing
can make a
diff erence to the
whole character
Yulia