Shreenithi is a software engineer and a craft entrepreneur; who diligently works on her crochet orders over the weekends. She custom designs crochet miniatures and Amigurumi under her label Crochet Love. Let’s find out more about her design passion, inspirations, forte, line up and more…
A bit about yourself.
I’m a software engineer by profession and a self taught crochet artist. My grandmother introduced me to crocheting. She showed me the basics of what she could remember and complemented my learning with a book to learn the art properly. I’ve been crocheting since I was 12 years old, starting off with projects in the book, which were accessories such as scarves and bags. The world wide web is my most trusted teacher and I picked up other forms of crocheting from the exhaustive resources available there.
What made you to pursue crochet alongside your day job?
I started crocheting as a leisure to give my close friends a bunch of handcrafted keepsakes. My art was getting attention through my friends and I was asked to make a few dolls at a cost. As the saying goes, practice makes a man perfect, and gradually, as I kept making more dolls, the stitches became more even. Friends and family encouraged me to take the subsequent step and thus the brand – Crochet Love bloomed.
Why is making important to you?
I love gifting people. I try to make the gifts as relatable and personalized as possible. Ask anyone who’s gone ‘gift shopping’ – they would indeed complain that finding such gifts has become tough. Crochet gives me an opportunity to make gifts from scratch. Watching the product take shape stitch by stitch makes me feel all the more excited about gifting. To me, that is what has made crocheting both, challenging and interesting.
Why miniatures?
Amigurumi or the art of making stuffed yarn dolls or 3 dimensional crocheting is not very popular in India. Amigurumi resulted in adorable cherub like dolls to my liking. I found miniature versions cuter than large sized ones. Miniature Amigurumi is practiced only by a few artists owing to the complexities involved in creating smaller stitches, which are more time consuming than making the same number of larger stitches. I found that making miniatures was much more fulfilling crochet experience. Time and again I work on requests for large sized Amigurumi dolls which provide me with the necessary practice to hone my miniature techniques.
Describe your creative process. Where do you start?
I think creativity married to story-telling is beautiful. Therefore, I make sure that anything I create means more than a mere gifting gesture – I make sure it conveys the giver’s story at a personal level. To help with this, as a first step, I connect the client’s story with multiple crochet ideas that the client and I come up in unison.. We then agree on the customization details like size and more importantly, the color scheme. After this I suit up, armoring with the right kind of yarn and hook, and start crocheting.
What is currently inspiring you now?
The satisfaction of looking at a perfect, finished product is addictive, it gives me a sense of accomplishment and that I believe is one of the major sources of inspiration. Not to mention, the smile the doll puts on someone’s face when I help manifest their ideas into a tangible cute doll – I think I’ll never get tired of that. Presently, I’ve been super smitten by artisan cupcakes and desserts and I’ve been experimenting some of those inspirations on my crochet. I’m creating a world where you can have cupcakes that don’t add those extra pounds on you, flowers that don’t wither and cacti plants that don’t hurt but decorate your table tops like you have never seen.
What’s a typical day at your home studio?
Weekdays are typically flanked with several hours of crocheting early in the day and late into the night – since I juggle crochet and a day job. The weekend is when I wind down and crochet at a more relaxed pace, and also end up getting all my yarn shopping done. If you ever visit my house, which is also where I work from, you can find crochet paraphernalia in every room, on every chair and table. A lot of experimentation goes into each product and the house is full of experiments gone wrong, but more importantly, it also has a lot of invaluable learning.
Tell us about your proposed showcase at the By Hand, From The Heart.
I’ve tried to display dolls that exhibit the different themes which help me justify how vast and beautiful the art of crocheting is. Even though I love Amigurumi, I’ve brought in other techniques as well. As far as the products go, the same ideology is applicable there too – you’ll have to come to my exhibit to know what I’m talking about.
Your By Hand, From The Heart experience.
I’ve visited a couple of editions of the Makers’ Market before and I was floored with the variety and quality of products at display. I ended up with bag loads of products, when I’d vowed to not purchase anything. But this is my first edition as a maker and I’m really excited to be a part of this wonderful venture.
Your favorite project/ design story you wish to share.
Every product I crochet is so close to my heart that I almost never want to part with it. But the one closest to my heart is a set of dolls and baby blanket I crocheted. This was a particularly challenging order to make – one with all giant sized dolls in comparison to the miniatures I am so comfortable making. It took me much longer than I expected, but in the end it was worth every minute of effort. The final products turned out to be perfect – something I’d, in the future, crochet for my child. I could only jump around in joy when the client sent a picture of her teeny tiny tot with an elephant and a giraffe almost bigger than him, lying so comfortably on the giant sheep blanket I made. Imagine the baby growing up with Amigurumi companions – Warms your heart, doesn’t it?
By Hand From The Heart: MAKERS MARKET – 21st Edition
Date: Friday – Saturday, 8th – 9th September, 2017
Time: 10:00 a.m – 8:00 p.m
Venue: Crowne Plaza Chennai Adyar Park
Address: 132, T.T.K Road, Alwarpet, Chennai – 600018, Tamil Nadu. India
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