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Teary-eyed! After the death of her beloved pet, she "resurrected" it with wool: learning to say goodbye is a compulsory course in the life of human beings
Humanity has been learning to say goodbye all their lives,
And the pet tries to use its life to teach humans goodbye.
Pet scarves
In 2016, Agnès' puppy "Bobo" fell ill and died;
In 2017, her other puppy, Bibi, also went to the hospital because of illness.
The successive blows changed the fate of Agnès to some extent.
It also made her knit with her pet, like a wheel and a chain, and kept running forward at a faster speed.
01
Two keyframes in the story
In every personal growth story, there will be more than one "opportunity".
For Agnès to become the professional weaver he is today, he has to go back to two moments in his life.
One is the relationship with weaving, which has to start from Agnès's childhood.
At a very young age, her mother began to teach her to knit scarves; By the time he was in elementary school, agnès was able to weave very simple styles;
Around 2015, near her guzheng tutoring class, she was attracted to Hamanaka's yarn weaving studio, and it was this opportunity that really cultivated her interest in knitting.
Another opportunity is that he chose to weave the image of his own dog on his sweater.
For those who like to have pets, their furry children are no different from family.
Usually see some items printed with the same breed as their pets, such as blankets, cups, refrigerator magnets, they will love the house and Wudi, not to mention the one-to-one private customization that can restore the appearance of their pets.
Spinning wheel of Agnès
"In 2016 or earlier, when I saw the Internet, I used dog hair to spin sweaters."
That same year, a puppy raised by Agnès suffered from pulmonary edema and soon went to Wang Xing, saying:
"At that time, I regretted not leaving some puppy fur as a souvenir"; In February of the following year, Agnès bought a spindle and tried to spin it himself, but it was not very successful, so he gave up;
By the end of September, her other puppy was diagnosed with a tumor.
Agnès didn't want to leave herself a chance to regret it, and now she happened to find a spinning wheel seller, so Agnès began the process of accumulating dog hair, spinning it into thread, and then knitting it into sweaters, hats, and scarves.
"It's a pity that I've never taken Bibi on a long trip", so wearing a scarf made of Bibi's wool, Agnès went to many places.
For her, this way is more able to dissolve her thoughts.
From spinning to "restoration", Agnès' love for pets has always been deep and unchanging, but her craft has been refined in the long thoughts.
In 2020, agnès spent nearly half a month knitting the appearance of a deceased puppy onto a sweater, which was originally intended to be able to travel with it, and it was also a continuation and commemoration of companionship.
But seeing the dog reappear in the form of a sweater, Agnès has mixed feelings in her heart, "half of the happiness brought by good memories, and half of the sadness of parting".
In 2021, she bought the original material package of the cat scarf of "Erika Tokai", and looked at a large package of wiring and style comparison pictures, she had an idea:
"If you want to weave, why can't you weave according to my cat?" So the wiring was rewired, and the first "one-of-a-kind pet scarf" was born.
A "very ball" cat scarf
A sweater and a scarf, through these two objects, Agnès's talent for restoring the appearance of pets with wool is revealed, and it can be regarded as officially knocking on the door of her weaving customization.
At the beginning of 2021, the first pet sweater she received was born.
According to the photos given to the owner of the fat fortune, the demeanor, color, and even the bite line on the side of the mouth of the fat fortune are retained.
More than 8 colors of wool are turned into a soft sweater with naughty attributes.
The owner of the fat fortune was very happy when he received it, so he felt very close to agnès, ran to Muji to order an exclusive agnès T-shirt, and asked a friend in Japan to buy a set of crochet for her.
02
Not a low market price, not a high hourly wage
Four years have passed, except for the necessary festivals, there is almost no stop, and business has even been so good that "2027 is also full, and I will not take orders for the time being".
At present, hundreds of smart and vivid scarves and sweaters have been born from her hands, and then created surprises for more people.
But like any kind of glamorous and brutal talent in the world, after 1% inspiration, it is 99% sweat that needs to be activated.
It takes 8-10 days to complete a work, which requires the cooperation of three main steps: 1. Drawing; 2. wiring; 3. Weaving.
The most difficult of these, Agnès says, are steps one and two, especially the latter.
On the one hand, wool is mainly used to knit sweaters or scarves, which need to have a good upper body effect and skin color, not entirely to restore the color of pet coats;
On the other hand, across the screen, there is always too much color difference in the color of the wool, and there is a lot of difference in the actual arrival of some sensitive colors, so it is necessary to stock up on a lot of wool of the same hue.
"It is not easy to complete each work" "Once, in order to restore a pinch of "ear hair", I bought a bucket of more than 400 pieces of silk thread;
Another time, in order to make the orange color block look more harmonious, I bought all the orange-toned silk mohair on the shelves of several brands, only to find that only one color was more suitable......
There are many more similar things.
The harshness of the details is also a test of the reserve space, "now there are dozens of boxes of wool at home."
After completing the first two difficult steps, the third was not an easy one. In this regard, perhaps those who have done Party B are more resonant.
In the process of weaving, in order to compare the different patterns and characteristics of each small animal, it may be necessary to constantly change the needle, and if you are not satisfied with it, you have to disassemble and re-weave.
It can be said that there has never been a work that does not need to be "modified", and it is precisely the revision, modification and modification again and again that gives each work a true completeness.
It is precisely because of this that Agnès does not hesitate to comment on his work: "There is no one who is the most satisfied, and every one is satisfied." ”
Each piece of knitting that has been painstakingly poured into is a "3D print" of agnès' capabilities.
The requirements for their craftsmanship have been repeatedly increased, in exchange for more vivid, delicate and vivid works, and the corresponding income.
The price of the agnès scarf is 2,328 yuan, and the price of the sweater is 3,388 yuan;
Customization needs to pay a deposit of 138 yuan first, and then pay the balance after completion.
At first glance, it seems to be a lot higher than the market price, but there is nothing wrong with it.
A scarf needs to use dozens of threads, if each scarf is purchased separately, then the final price will be much higher than 2328 yuan.
It is precisely because of agnès' habit of buying wool from time to time, "I buy what looks good, what is suitable, or I have the opportunity to use it", which flattens the cost of raw materials required for each scarf.
In this way, the hourly wage equivalent to her contracted labor and materials is 38.8 yuan/hour, and the net income after deducting costs is not very high.
Moreover, Agnès is not willing to play a workaholic, "maintaining an income of about 8,000 yuan a month, which is worthy of his physical strength of more than 8 hours a day, it is OK".
03
A script for "all good people".
When Agnès' custom business was just booming, it received a wave of skepticism, which can be regarded as another challenge beyond the technical level.
On the product's home page, there is an interactive feature called "Ask Everyone" that allows potential buyers to ask questions to people who have already purchased the product.
Agnès said: "In the beginning, people would come and ask some malicious 'phishing' questions, and even ask for a refund because I liked a popular male artist, and 'ask everyone' to avoid me. ”
And because of the platform's regulations, sellers can't delete buyers' questions or answers, "that time will be very internal friction."
Zoom in to see the content of the bad review
"On the contrary, almost every customer who actually spends money to buy is happy and pleasantly surprised after receiving the goods", according to Agnès, her user portrait has several tags:
Treat pets as family, understand the value of handicrafts, like unique souvenirs, ordinary people.
When Agnès was viciously questioned many times, it was these buyers who stood in front of her again and again and took the trouble to speak up for her.
Not only that, but they also buy limited-edition crochet hooks, buy picture albums from the Forbidden City, souvenirs with museums, and even help Agnès grab tickets for plays.
The power of love is extremely embodied at this moment, and throughout the event, from the establishment of a custom order for a scarf to the delivery of the product, both the buyer and the seller rely on a strong sense of conviction about love to make the whole magnetic field full of goodwill;
Clusters of tiny yarns eventually become tokens that confirm the brilliance of human nature, appearing warmly and softly on someone's neck and in a drawer.
Every buyer comes to Agnès with their own story and sustenance.
She said she was impressed by one buyer's testimonial:
Today I finally got my wish, and looking back, he used to like to hang on my pillow early on weekend mornings as my "judge's wig set", and I haven't had this kind of fun since I left.
Although the schedule is a little longer, after meeting again, you will feel that all the waiting is very worthwhile~ Every detail is restored very well, and the color matching of the line is also full of care.
In addition to gratitude, it is more moving, and for me personally, it is a kind of comfort after a long time.
I saw some comments and questioned just to say that the value of everything in the world has a certain number in everyone's heart, and the weight of feelings cannot be quantified.
Word by word, it rushed into Agnès's heart like a torrent, and it also strengthened her idea to continue weaving.
But her external expression is tepid, especially at a time when most people are eager to monetize, and Agnès still refuses to establish a brand or mass production.
"In the end, there is no way to maintain any form of mass production, the aesthetics cannot be unified, and the core cannot ask others to be the same as me. I can guarantee that I will make the orders by myself, so that there will be no disagreement with the customer."
04
Write at the end
Before the release of the 2020 "Fu Tanuki Scarf" note, Agnès also insisted on documenting her life in Xiaohongshu.
On a year-by-year basis, it's almost all about pets and compilation.
Even though the order has been scheduled until 2027, Agnès still feels that he is "not a craftsman", and the original intention of doing this is because he loves knitting and loves furry children in all senses.
"If the starting point is to make a living, then this can't be done and can't be done."
Outside of the original intention, Agnès is satisfied with the status quo for another reason:
This job can spend more time with her furry children at home, which is closer to her ideal life, but she does hope that it can be better.
"My mother adopted more than 30 stray cats and now has a rooftop house to keep them."
"I hope to have the opportunity to have a small yard in the future and bring these cats with me," Agnès said. ”
These cuties are the spiritual sustenance of the agnès, and the agnès are their angels.
Together, they fill the world with love!
(Excerpted from the WeChat public account of the City of Ingenuity)