Huggable ‘friends’

2009/07/24

NURJEHAN MOHAMED

BEFORE last October, Yue Jun Mei had never sewn a stitch in her life.

But her desire to try it out prompted her to buy a sewing machine and make her first pillow.

“I created a bear-like pillow because I like hugging them and I love toys and animals,” says the 24-year-old junior lecturer at The One Academy.

Her first pillow sparked an interest that has become a lucrative hobby — Yue makes animal pillows under the name BeaniPets and sells them through her blog.

Now she is preparing to take the next step by becoming a full-time pillow maker.

She will continue teaching part-time as she focuses on building up her business.

Yue Jun Mei cannot bear to part with her “naughty” Mojo, which has arms and legs and pockets to play with.

“I have orders to keep me busy till April next year.

“But I’m not rushing anything — just enjoying the whole process,” Yue says.

She does not have much of a social life now because her free time is mostly taken up with designing and sewing pillows for her mostly female clientele.

“I can finish one to three pillows in a week, depending on the design.”

Living up to their label, BeaniPets have a date of birth, individual names, personalities and are “adopted” rather than “bought”.

To date, Yue has completed more than 50 creations that include huggable pillows and headrest cushion covers.

Yue doesn’t believe in making more than one of each design and does not duplicate existing pillows either.

“I don’t like making replicas of other people’s work because it’s like copying their ideas,” Yue says, adding that she has plenty of her own to work on.

She gets inspiration from things around her and tries to make animal pillows that portray a positive and happy image.

The fan of Japanese anime such as Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbour Totoro and Disney cartoons also draws ideas for her creations from these animated films.

“My pillows are designed to be cute and huggable,” she says, adding that her main selling point is that her handiwork are unique and cannot be bought in stores.

Sometimes she makes a pillow that she cannot bear to part with — her first creation Bear Bear and monkey-like Mojo are examples.
“For Bear Bear, I had to unpick the threads about 10 times and throw out some cloth because I had measured, cut or sewed wrongly,” she says of her learning process.

She got tips on how to use the sewing machine from the salesperson and her boyfriend’s mother.

For the artist, sewing and painting are similar in terms of the process being very important — from planning to the execution.
Having studied art is a boon to her, she feels, as she has an idea of how colours should combine to evoke certain emotions.
“I’m an emotional person so when it comes to my designs and colour schemes, I just go with what feels right.”

Many of her BeaniPets are in soft pastels and feminine florals, although she has some in stronger reds and oranges, and all are made with common cottons rather than extravagant silks.
“I like that my creations are homey — they are, after all, designed to be a friend you can hug at home.”