Discover Our Story - Passionate Crafting of Amigurumi Patterns
Hi! I'm Bianca, I have always been passionate about crafts, but my lack of knowledge and insecurity made me believe that I couldn't pursue this path in my life.
I was born and grew up in Duque de Caxias, Rio de Janeiro. I've always been very shy, introverted, and studious. As a child, I loved to gather my cousins on weekends to play, and among many games, my favorites were: Playing school: I was ALWAYS the teacher, and even during the game, I tried to teach them something real. Director of arts: I created choreographies and taught them to sing songs for performances on Mother's Day, Father's Day, and Christmas. Crafts: we did a bit of everything, from bead jewelry to embroidery on small towels. And yes, we sold our products, a towel for 1 real, and we were super happy with our 'great profit'. Art and teaching have always been present in my life, but it took me a while to understand that this was my true path.
Who knows me today doesn't know the struggle it was to get here (but now you will).
The teenage Bianca thought that all she needed to be happy was a stable career. I never even considered 'happiness' as something relevant professionally speaking. I gave up my dreams to live what others had dreamed for me. I remember when I took an online vocational test at 15/16 years old that said I had an aptitude for arts and advised me to follow this path in college. 'How so, arts?' I thought... I ignored my heart and prepared to enter a military school. And I convinced myself that was my dream, my destiny. And for a good while, it really was. I gave up part of my adolescence to study and achieve this dream. At 17 years old, I was approved in the public contest to become an air force sergeant, an air traffic controller. I was the fifth placed among 97 who entered the contest. And so I lived the joys and pains of that dream, for almost 13 years.
During that time, I graduated in Portuguese/English Languages, took a postgraduate course in English language teaching methodology, and took linguistic proficiency tests from Michigan, Cambridge... after all, teaching has ALWAYS been a passion.
But my mind has always been much more creative and restless than the environment I was in allowed me to be. With little time, came disappointments and frustrations, which would not be overcome in a rigid work environment. I felt trapped, depressed, I had a burnout trying to make a system work that wasn't mine.
I tried everything to get out of that feeling that had taken over me, and I threw myself headlong into the mission to discover myself:
I practiced many sports, to the point of participating in national championships, played drums, took sewing and artistic calligraphy courses (among many others). Until in 2015 my husband, at the time boyfriend, showed me a picture of amigurumi and I was enchanted!
At the time there were very few contents on the internet about it, and I felt a tremendous need to learn that incredible technique. A colleague knew how to crochet and offered to help me. I spent 1 hour at her house, trying to learn how to hold the needle and make a magic ring. She gave me a skein and a needle and so I went home, determined to complete my first ball (which looked like an onion 😂)
Since then I have never stopped:
I gifted many people, made many orders, until it no longer fit in my agenda. Arriving stressed from work and having my needle became my escape valve and my refuge. I started receiving orders for amigurumis that had no recipes for sale, and then I saw the need to create my own recipes. I fell even more in love with the process of putting my mind and creativity into the world. And with each new recipe, came beautiful feedbacks that consolidated my desire to make this my profession.
I decided to pursue my dream, regardless of what others thought or expected me to do. I worked hard for almost 5 years on a triple journey (military, teacher, and craftsman) on a mission to live my dream: I saved every penny I could, made extra income every minute I had in the week, invested in courses, and studied a lot about various areas so that I could have my own business.
I also studied a lot during this time, to get a master's degree abroad.
It was a dream, that as a military, I could not live. I studied, studied, studied and took a hit from several universities. I started to believe that this was not for me, and that I was doomed to stay in the air force because I was not good enough. I swallowed my tears, contacted ALL the universities and asked what I needed to improve to be accepted. Only 2 answered me, and there went another year of a lot of study, living my triple journey, with a little more burnout in the account.
A year passed, and more rejections came... and with them came the certainty that I was not good enough to do a master's degree abroad. But I needed that change, and I couldn't take it anymore. Until at the last minute, the university that was my number one choice, sent me an email saying that I was approved. I will never be able to put into words what that meant to me!
Today I live my childhood dream: I TEACH ART! I am a teacher, a craftswoman, and thanks to the internet I can teach this art that was liberating for me, to so many people. I love hearing stories of people who came out of difficult moments thanks to crochet. I believe that everything we put love and dedication into, everything we put good into this world, comes back to us. My mission is to put this art more and more into the world, so that more and more people can feel the peace that this can bring us!
