My name is Irina, and for as long as I can remember, I’ve always been crafting, drawing, knitting or sewing something.

In childhood, I designed, knitted and sewed all the wardrobes for my dolls. My grandmother gave me my first knitting lessons, which I remember fondly.

When, many years ago, my son began to attend a Waldorf school, I gladly volunteered to knit toys, create dolls and teach classes in knitting, sewing and needle-felting for his school. My son became excited about each knitted horse or kitty, and I fell in love with creating new toys and inventing doll characters.

In those days, I entirely immersed myself into the design of knitted toys – creating them is rewarding in so many ways!

My second indulgence is travel. My family’s favorite joke is: While anything can be in danger of being forgotten to pack by Mom – it’s never her knitting project bag! Many of my toys came to be during one journey or another, whether in Italy or Norway or on faraway mountains.

When I think up the shape of a new knitted toy or doll, I constantly ponder about how to best write the instructions to make it as smoothless as possible to replicate the item.

For this reason, you’ll notice that my instructions are very easy to follow. They are written as detailed step-by-step guides, and every working step is accompanied by helpful photographs illustrating the process.

I wish that you feel the same joy replicating toys with the help of my instructions as I felt when designing them, and I’m always open for your feedback to further improve my patterns.

I hope that my dolls and toys will make you smile, and when smiles live, the world becomes a better place.

Happy knitting! Join the magical world of elves!