Ana Paula Rimoli was a busy mom of a two-year-old girl, Olivia, and working at a dead-end office job when what started as a mere hobby, the making of crocheted toys, picked up enough pace to flourish into a booming Internet business as well as two instructional craft books.
The 33-year-old was already an ardent fan of toys and of handcrafting them, thanks to a neighbor in her childhood home in Uruguay, who introduced her decades ago to the wonderful world of crocheting. And when she was expecting Olivia, now six, she started to make all her daughter’s toys, blankets and clothing.
“If I could have, I would even have done the diapers,” Rimoli says. This thought is brought to fruition in one of her dolls which wears a working velcro diaper, which she designed for Olivia as a toddler as they both awaited the birth of Olivia’s sister, Martina.
Rifling through crochet-toy patterns, Rimoli found, unsurprisingly for anyone familiar with Hello Kitty and the Pokemon character Pikachu, the cutest ones were of Japanese origin, in a craft form known as amigurumi. Ami, in Japanese, means knitted or crocheted, and nuigurumi refers to a stuffed doll. The dolls, typically with oversized heads, wide-set eyes and miniscule limbs, are the epitome of kitsch and ovewhelming, compelling and unavoidable, well, cuteness.
Amigurumi arguably might avoid some of the ridicule and cynicism invited by things ‘kawaii‘ (cute, in Japanese) because of their very handmadeness. I mean someone made these things. With wool. And a hooked needle. By innately knowing how to, or by following patterns that read, to the uninitiated, like gobbledegook. In a time when mass production and technology rule and when handmade creativity is hard to come by, I say this demands respect.
Rimoli explained how her passion and hobby got monetized. “The trouble was that I couldn’t understand the (Japanese) amigurumi pattern symbols” for making the toys, Rimoli says. “So, I started to imitate Japanese toys, with the big heads and so on, then I started to make my own toys and write my own patterns and I was doing this all the time. I put these on Etsy 3 1/2 years ago, when there were very few people selling such patterns.”
Rimoli’s web page became an instant hit, allowing her on its earnings in those early years to quit her unrewarding office job. Fans out there are aplenty, and looking at Rimoli’s page on Etsy, a website for selling and buying handmade items, one would deduce that her online business, with nearly 6,000 patterns or toys sold, was tremendously successful.
But no, says the unadorned and svelte Rimoli, speaking in her tidy and modest apartment in Montclair, that she shares with her husband Franco, their daughters, and pet dog. Making the toys consumes an enormous amount of her time, with little 2-inch toys taking two to three hours and bigger 8-inch or multifaceted ones (snail in a pear for example, see the slideshow) taking several days, rendering the effort hardly cost-effective.
Other impediments to success online lurked, too, highlighting a pitfall for creative types exhibiting their wares online. Some ambitious “fans” began to make virtually identical toys and to sell them or to forward Rimoli’s (copyrighted) patterns to their own friends.
Rimoli dismisses this, saying her followers on Etsy have mostly been kind and supportive.
But she said what has ultimately worked for her and her bank balance are the two books of amigurumi patterns that she has had published.
“Those are doing well,” said Rimoli modestly, even as her first book goes into its eighth reprint, and the recently published second book, its second. “I am thinking of doing a third.”
Motivation comes, apart from her own passion, from her daughters’ enthusiasm for the finished products, and the feedback of customers, especially children.
“So many kids write and tell me they’re making the toys. It’s so sweet. I mean they are making their own dolls and they are interested in this, and some of them write to say they are saving money to buy some particular pattern of mine,” said Rimoli, a self-named ‘cuteness factory’ who was recently mentioned in a story on Pittsburgh’s online advertising and community website, The Almanac.net.
A complete sucker for any labors of one’s own hands and (dare I say it) of kawaii, I fell in love with her little characters, and my kids, both boys, have been badgering me to make various creatures from Rimoli’s second book.
Those keen to learn the craft will have the opportunity to meet the star amigurumi artist herself: Rimoli is set to impart her knowledge in a workshop at Stix-n-Stitches, 214 Glenridge Ave, in the fall. Call the yarn store at 973.744.3535 for details.
(Photos and Slideshow/Bernadette Baum)
They are gorgeous. Has she considered licening the characters? They would make adorable greeting cards/ gift wrap etc.
opps… licensing.