 Ya shifting from faraway many years, yarn has mostly been used to make paradise clothes, mostly you would see grandmothers making them, they will make sweaters for their kids and things like that but in today's world yarn actually has been modernized to make a lot of other different things. For example we have flowers that are made out of yarn being that yarn is many very many different colors, kwenmati karakaweza na yon kwaweza na watua kwaweza yaweza kufa kwaweza niwa wajata kwaweza kwaweza watua kwaweza na waweza kwaweza na watua yon kwaweza niwa, kwaweza na waweza ma shape iwa nini kwaweza na waweza kwaweza niwa wajata It was considered an art where only grandmothers and mothers used to make it but now, you are as a young person. Tell us about your story. OK. The main one of the reasons where I started to crochet because I felt like crocheting is an art that shouldn't just be left in the past. It's an art that started long time ago. We all know it from grandmothers, but nowadays I thought of how can we keep on going on with this art, So that's why the modernization of the yarn came in. Personally, I make outfits. For my love of fashion, I use that to make outfits out of the yarn. More than outfits. That include dresses, more than sweaters that people wear nowadays, a lot of other things as well. Okay, so if I were to give you an order to make a dress, so how long does it take to make one? How long it takes to making things is actually very different. If I'm going to make a dress, a full dress, that means I'm going to take a lot of time in making the dress. It's actually a process. So when I get an order, I'll just take you through the process. When I get an order from a client, the client tells me the kind of design they want or the kind of outfit they want. I now draw it and come out. When I'm drawing, I get to know the measurements, what am I going to use. If you don't have the measurements, I'm not going to make the outfit unless you send me the measurements because I don't want to catch any material that outfit for eight hours only for you to tell me it's not fitting because you didn't give me the right measurements. So I prefer measurements. So take us through the process of making a product like that. Okay, for example, I just tell you about this. It's currently a dress. It's for a client. She wanted a maxi dress for her birthday, but black and white. How is that a dress again? It's a dress. Currently you can't really see, but this is the upper part. I'll just try to show you. Can I try to see how you can see it? Of course. The upper parts? Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay, different colors. Yes. Ah, so how come you don't know the measurements? Yes, I always make them. I'm making different pieces. Then I will join them to form a dress. So currently I'm just making the pieces. After I've made all the pieces, they are connected. Once they are connected, we get our dress. Okay. Yeah. Let me show you. Ini bust. One bust. This is another. Impressive. Yes. So ini already nisha form bust. So I'm making the body. Okay. So I'll make it a kujahivi, yende from waist, yende to hipst, yende to chini. When I have this in full and this in full, I now connect them. Connect them. I'll have to form a perfect dress. Okay. Yes. So let's talk about this one. Oh, this. Is that a sweater or what is it? This leg is a sweater top. Oh, okay. And the shoulder is a sweater top. You can just see it. So this here I make elastic. Oh, nice. Yes. So you can see ini elastic, when I'm going to wear this, it's going to fit me perfectly. Okay. Yeah. So do you choose the color for your clients or they choose it for themselves? Some clients actually, one of them, I just choose for me the color or others actually tell me, I want that in green or I want that in another color. So the beauty about it crochet is like at any point you can get any color you want. It's so colorful. Kuna orange. Kuna all the color that you can think of. Kuna blue. Kuna. So it's actually a place where you can play with different colors to come up with different design. If anyone wants, they can check out my page in IG at Crochet Lux. You can, I just see the art. You can see the way where I'm playing with the colors. Nice. What I'm coming up with. Yeah. What about this? What is this? This is a skirt. Oh. This is a skirt actually. Okay. This is nice. You also do this. Yeah. So this is just the design of the skirt. Uh huh. It's like you can flip it. Nice. It looks very, very difficult to do. Is it? It's not. Like I told you, it's a skill. I can begin to make more complicated designs. And also, I have to know what do my clients want you get. So when I'm doing that, drawing helps me come up with that. And then after I draw, is when I start to create. So this can take a long, can take five hours, can take ten hours, can take five days, can take a week. It depends actually the design of the outfit and how long the outfit really actually takes to make. And how does that affect the cost range? Of course, that affects the cost range. If I'm going to take a lot of hours making a gamet or a dress probably, I'm going to charge more for it because whatever you're paying me as a crochet artist is you're buying the art. You're really not buying the outfit. You're buying the art because when I'm making a crochet outfit, it's like I'm giving a piece of me to the art itself. That means there are some moments where I get frustrated. I'm making an outfit and then it's not working out the way I want it. So it means I'm also giving out part of myself. So when you're buying a crochet outfit, you're not just buying the gamet. You're buying an art and that's what it's actually going to cost you. So that actually costs more. Yeah. And there are different forms of art. Why crocheting? Crocheting is a very fascinating art. First of all, if I just trying to explain when I started crocheting, I started crocheting four years ago. When I started out, I used to have issues. For example, I couldn't get my measurements right every time I would make an outfit that would come out smaller or maybe larger than the one I intended to make. So over time, crochet is a fascinating art being that it grows. It feels like a small child actually growing. That's how I can really tell my story. Because when I started out four years ago, I couldn't make perfect stitches. I couldn't make perfect measurements. But now when I look back, it feels like it's gradually increasing. The skills, they are gradually increasing. And then when you look at a crochet outfit, there's just some uniqueness and it's so amazing. I can't really explain it. But that's the beautiful thing I love about crocheting. It's such a beautiful art. I really can't get to explain that how fascinating it is. I don't know if other people see it as well. But as for me, I feel like it's a very fascinating art that I would like to continue making for a while. Okay. Most of us are used to cotton clothes like the ones we have. And this is Yan, Niusi, Kunashimo. So how can you, how do you go around that? Yan. Okay. That's actually because people don't really know much about Yan. They are Yan made out of cotton. They are Yan made out of silk. They are Yan made out of a lot of things. It's because it's modern times. Ya Kitambo, we used to think Yan is just made out of, that's a cleric actually. The one you're holding right now. But Yan can be made in other different forms. We can have a cleric. We can have cotton. We can have silk. We can have nylon. We can have a lot of things out of Yan. Ya. So you work with a cleric or you work with all of them? It depends on what I'm making. If I'm going to make a baby's cloth, for example, a baby's dress, I'm going to use a much finer Yan. And that's cotton Yan. It's softer. It's, you know, so actually the type of Yan also dictates what you're actually making. If I'm going to make something else, I use a different type of Yan. Ya. And how is the market for your business? The market is tricky actually because this is an art that I think there's stereotypes still around it. When you think of crocheting, you just think of somebody sitting down and using a hook, probably grandmother picture. So when you modernize crochet and you bring it in a form, in a modern time, so you're going to make an outfit out of something that has been thought to be of the old times, people begin to ask questions about it. So actually that's a way the market is being affected because of the stereotypes. So when I'm going out there as a crochet artist and I'm looking for a market to sell my product, I'm actually looking for people who know what art is, not somebody who wants to buy a gamet. I'm not, I don't want to sell to somebody who's fascinated by art. Who knows the amount of energy I'm going to put in the gamet. Who knows that I'm going to use creativity when I'm making the gamet. Somebody who understands art and that's my market. That's the people that I want to target, not just anybody else. I would love to say that I was one of those people who thought about crocheting as a grandmother sitting. So I'll ask you, do you ever get bored or are there any other challenges that you go through? Of course there are a lot of challenges just from the point that you say you have to sit to make a crochet outfit. Actually one of the things that crochet has taught me the values that I'm getting from this as being just a crochet artist I've learned discipline, I've learned commitment because I have to sit down and make this outfit. If I don't feel like doing it how am I going to complete my outfit. I've loved it it has also improved my creativity. So apart from just crocheting for the other things there are values you get out of crocheting. You learn to be committed, you learn to be disciplined you learn to be creative you learn a lot of other things as well. So being a student of media how are you able to balance producing your product, the marketing and studies? It's crazy actually because as an artist I'm using this as a crochet I'm taking this as my brand being that it's a brand I am the producer I am the marketer I'm doing all the things like a one man person's business you know So currently it's still hard but one of the things that have really helped me to balance as being a student with this art it has been that planning is one important thing that I have got to I've got to be with the chain to learn how to plan so well planning has helped me a lot in balancing because I know when are my classes coming up when do I have clients who want one to three things how am I going to make that and how do I cooperate that between the times that I have for my studies and the time that I have to create So planning has really played a major role in my life to enable me to balance between my academics and also to and my creative side. You've said that crocheting has helped you in discipline and planning and the aspect has instilled in you Okay, greatly crocheting has helped me personally with my mental health when I was just starting out in Skuli I had some really weird mental health issues I don't know it was just but actually mental health is currently a problem that is affecting many of the youths So before I had started crocheting I was dealing with a lot of mental health issues and that means depression I was that one person that would just stick in the house the whole day to go for classes and don't do anything By that time I really didn't feel like I wanted to engage with the world I felt like I really wasn't having a grip on reality and the times were really tough the times were hard because there's no one I could talk to because things like depression and stuff I think that people are still frowning upon you will go and tell your friends and they will be like kwawe a chana nadipu urechi kwawe ushiku na depression that's what they tell you probably but at the end of the day you're suffering you don't really know how to get your grip on you don't know how to start what to do and how to move on So in a way that crochet really helped me that's actually when I started to crochet I just thought yes I thought the future holds for me because actually that's really what depression your anxious about the future and maybe you're sad about the past so it's really a lot and so I said I don't really know what the future holds I really don't know about that I know of the past but I'm not really going to let the past drag me down so the only way where I really got my strength back is through crocheting because I said I'm sleeping the whole day just make a bralette that's you know the swimming I make a bralette if I did it today I can do it tomorrow and I can do it the next day and that's how I got my confidence back and that's how I started to live again so yeah I think crochet is just a big part of my life and it's an atta wouldn't just want to push out and take it out because somebody said it's just sitting and crocheting I feel it's a big impact and I would like to say it for someone out there who's currently dealing with depression just find one thing that you can do anything even if it's just small if you do it today you can do it tomorrow repeat the same thing you did and if you do it after a period of time you'll find yourself back again feeling happy again feeling that at least you can do something for yourself so yeah it gets better I would love to congratulate you for being a hero and standing up for yourself and choosing something better I would really love to congratulate you for doing that so where do you get your clients from? so my clients mostly get them online yes an online presence gets me to my clients because like I told you before crochet is an art you need to really find people who know what art is and you don't just find people like that anyway you have to sell your product put your product out there tell people why somebody has to choose you currently there are so many other crochet people there are so many other people so if I'm going out there to get my clients first of all I need to tell them I'm selling art I'm not selling a garment so I need a specific kind of people that know what I'm actually selling they know the advantage of something that is handmade and they also know the value of art and also another thing somebody who can actually pay me for my price because I'm not going out there to just sell I need somebody who can get to the price I love the fact that you're an art enthusiast I was also once an art enthusiast but I love how you do it and out of it are there any other art activities any other activities that you're involved in? currently I really won't say because you know with the nature of crocheting it's really hard to get around doing other things actually currently my life is around crocheting at academics I wouldn't really tell I'm expecting other types I'm doing other types of arts but I'm a person who just love art naturally love art I love the simple things of life and all that so with that I get to whatever crocheting helps me if I see something outside of nature that is art I can implement that into crochet so actually crochet is a broad I see it as a broad way of expressing my creativity and also art as a whole because if I can make flowers out of crochet that's like just art in nature brought into crochet yeah yeah so how do you plan to sustain your business going forward? since I'm still studying right now it's kind of hard I'm still struggling with the marketing I'm still struggling with production and all that but I'm thinking that when I'm done with my studies my plan now that is when I'm done with my studies I can actually involve other people as well that also creators of art like crochet I mean other crocheters so we can come up and start something together you know when you're we are around 2 to 3 people 5 people it's clearly that you can get more done compared if I'm just one person so the way that I want to expand is by involving other crocheters as well and after involving other crocheters also we can also have people who can help with advertising and marketing so I'm seeing it as something that I want to create a brand out of it and not just a one person brand to want to involve other people so that's actually my plan so saying that you have made this for yourself you have created something good for yourself what can you tell other people who aim to do the same thing as you have I'll just say the times are tough currently the times are really tough everything is changing drastically economy and all that I'll just say if you have something that you can do whatever that is it's a modernized world currently we have internet whatever you can do just do it and show it to the world you never know actually if you begin loving this thing that you're doing or somebody else may just like it so anything that you find your hands to do you don't really have to wait for a white collar job so anything that you can do with your hands or anything that you can do just do it and show it to the world thank you so much Quinta this has been very informative personally I am challenged are you challenged out there take it upon yourself to do something productive with your hands that will make you even better each and every day this has been Youth in Action I am Nyongweso Grenis