BY LILIANA SHERYN
KUCHING: Crocheting is a fun hobby that allows people to create beautiful, one-of-a-kind and practical items.
There are so many benefits of crocheting, where one finds happiness in doing it, while for some it is part of relaxation or a form of therapy.
For siblings Mei Ping, 38, and Ryan Lee, 32, both started crocheting as a hobby, to release stress before venturing into the crochet business.
The duo currently runs a small business called PingsCrochet, which does not have any physical store. Instead, they only promote their items online and participate in events to open their booth.
Beside just crocheting anime characters into mini plushies, PingsCrochet also takes customised orders from the public.
According to Ryan, this business began as a side hobby which they pursued to release stress after a hectic day at work.
“Initially we only promote our items online, which attracted a large number of customers, inspiring us to continue doing this business despite our hectic work schedule,”he told New Sarawak Tribune.
“We do take customised orders from other people, sometimes they request for a bouquet of flowers, mix and match items as a gift set, or even handbags and we will customise accordingly to the customer’s request. Sometimes customers request for baby mittens.” he said.
He added customised and handmade orders usually cost a lot because of the materials used and effort involved.
Meanwhile Mei Ping, who is an engineer, stated that she learned to crochet during her university years.
“I crochet to fill up my free time and find extra pocket money, so I bought all the materials and learnt how to do it from my aunty,” she said.
However, Mei Ping’s aunty only taught her how to make a tablecloth, and she gradually learned how to do other things on her own.
“ We attract our customers by frequently posting our items on our social media particularly Tiktok so as to receive a lot more engagements and many people will look at them.
“We also participate in events where we open our booth to promote our handmade crochet arts,” she said, adding that for a normal animal crochet, it took her only a day to finish it.
Handbags on the other hand might take up to one month.
“The price range is determined by the amount of time required to do it as well as the type of materials that they prefer.
“The price range can go as low as RM6 and up to RM200. Usually for the handbags the material has to be ordered from overseas so these will be a bit pricey for us,” she said.
Mei Ping and Ryan expressed their hope that their business would grow despite not having a physical store and PingsCrochet would become more well-known to the public through social media.
For more information, do visit their social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram (pingscrochet), and Tiktok (pingscrochet).
