I grew up surrounded by characters with opinions. My mother had a gift for bringing toys to life — we had a brave doll, a stubborn hamster, a romantic caterpillar. They weren't just sitting on a shelf. They had things to say.
I think that's when I understood: every creature has a story. You just have to listen closely enough.
I worked as a life coach and art therapist, sitting across from people, helping them find their way through themselves. And somewhere along the way I noticed: a soft toy in someone's hands can do something words sometimes can't. It's simply there. No judgment. No advice. Just presence. And sometimes that's exactly enough.
Life eventually brought me to Friesland, a place where water seems to outnumber land. Canals, lakes, and an endless sky mirrored back from below. In that stillness, characters started arriving — one by one. Soft, a little peculiar, each with their own inner life. I knit them with needles, though honestly, I mostly find them in a skein of wool, from a fairy tale, in an accidental silhouette, in the mood of a grey morning. And in painting. I can look at old masters' canvases for a long time. Not for the subject, but for the way ochre moves into shadow, or how a faded rose holds its own next to grey-green. Those combinations settle into the wool, into a character's nature, into what they eventually become.
Each character arrives already knowing who they are. They carry something: a feeling, a quiet kind of knowing. And maybe they help the person holding them feel it too.

Softcoven is where they live. Welcome.