Yanling: Building her craft, thread by thread

“When you finish it you feel happy. You feel really, really accomplished, like your work is the best. No one can tell you your work sucks!”

Meet Yanling, a Maker who creates adorable stuffed toys using crocheting and needle felting! You might say that these two crafts are rather niche hobbies in Singapore. In fact, Yanling herself doesn’t know anyone else who both crochets and needle felts in Singapore, let alone anyone who makes the same kind of toys that she does.

“It’s not easy to make all these crafts in Singapore, it’s not a big scene,” she said, when asked about what it was like pursuing this hobby.

Overcoming challenges

Despite the challenges she faced in pursuing her craft, Yanling has been crocheting and felting away with gusto. When she first started out, she didn’t even have anyone to look to personally for help and advice.

“Just try!” she said. “I just bought the material, and realised the needle was different (from the sewing needle). Then I started poking and everything, and I mastered everything myself!”

Well it might sound really easy, but Yanling admitted that the initial pieces she made when she first started out left much to be desired, mentioning to us that, “At the start, my characters looked very cui (bad). It took me several tries!”

Exploring her creativity

Crocheting and needle felting has also brought Yanling through a journey to discover what makes her work unique. As she is still building a name for herself, Yanling has mostly been creating works based on cartoons, such as Pokemon and Adventure Time. Basing her works on such popular cartoons has its own set of challenges, because she found that there were others online, doing it as well!

“When you go out to the market, you might see people making the exact same thing. Then you might say to yourself, if people are already doing it, why do I bother? What makes mine special?” she said.

Fortunately for her, the X factor in her toys was noticed by an unexpected audience.

“Surprisingly, people who buy from me are mostly guys!” she exclaimed. “You would think a lot of kids and girls would buy but no, the boys would buy it.”

It’s not easy parting with her work, because after all, she spends hours and hours on every single one. She shared with us that the minimum amount of time she takes to make one item is 2 days! She would wake up early in the morning, and start making all the way until night falls.

She shared with us how attached she feels to a piece once she has finished it, saying: “When people want to buy it, you’re like ‘Uh, aiya,’ but then you’re really happy at the same time, because when there are customers, it shows (that) people appreciate what you do and they like it!”

Plans for the future

“What are your dreams,” we asked. “How far do you plan to take this?”

“I’d rather make my own company, to do what I want. It might take a long time, and it might be difficult, but at least I accomplished something!”

Working hard to achieve your dreams? Sounds like the Maker spirit to me.