Q&A: Student talks crochet, selling stuffed animal creations at UCLA

Cindy Nguyen sits on the floor of her apartment late at night, wielding a single, small hook that she uses to manipulate different lengths of thread.

First legs, then a body, then a single horn. Like magic, a unicorn begins to appear from a pile of rainbow-colored yarn. For Nguyen, a third-year geography student, killing two birds with one stone means pursuing her passion for crocheting while turning a profit.

Nguyen picked up crocheting as a simple hobby at UCLA two years ago. She has been selling her hand-crafted crocheted stuffed animals on UCLA’s Free & For Sale Facebook page since February 2015, and has since sold seven of her handmade animals. Her latest project, plush unicorns based on the 2010 movie “Despicable Me,” takes about a day to make and sells for $30 each.

Nguyen’s creations have all sold out in just a few weeks, with the last unicorn selling out Tuesday.

The Daily Bruin’s Kyle Young spoke with Nguyen on learning how to crochet, the process behind crocheting a stuffed animal by hand and turning a unique hobby into a small campus business.

Daily Bruin: When did you first learn how to crochet?

Cindy Nguyen: It was around two years ago, but I quit for a long time because I was just busy with other things. Once I picked it up again, I got kind of crazy with it and started doing it all the time. … It was just something I learned to do on my own, so I just looked up some YouTube videos. But it’s a lot easier to learn from someone else, so one of my friends taught me, and an old roommate of mine kind of guided me from there. So in a lot of ways it was self-taught, but I did get a lot of guidance from friends.

DB: How long have you been doing this as a business at UCLA?

CN: I wouldn’t necessarily say that I do this as a business. I think it was more of a “let-me-try-selling-one-of-these” kind of thing, but a lot of people are pushing me to open an Etsy. I think that would take the fun out of doing it, because I’m so over making unicorns, I’ve probably made six of them by now. … This is my first time making these to sell them.

DB: What would you consider the most difficult part of crocheting?

CN: The same repetitive movement, it kind of hurts sometimes. My hands will get tired. … It’s really relaxing though, like say I’m super stressed with an essay, like (I was) yesterday, I’ll start crocheting and I’ll be like okay, I’m good and then I’ll start working on my paper.

DB: What’s your favorite part about crocheting?

CN: The end product is just so fun – to see that I created something from practically nothing just from yarn. Honestly, it’s kind of addicting. … Once I start it’s like I don’t want to stop until it’s finished, which is a problem because I have school. I think that’s why it takes me so little time to make (these unicorns).

DB: How long does it take to create an animal, from start to finish?

CN: I’m a little weird. I do things a bit differently, so I’ll make the legs for the unicorn until I have a bunch of legs, and then I’ll get tired of doing that so I’ll switch to a different body part. So I can never really tell how long it took me to make one from start to finish. … It depends on my mood, honestly. I crochet a lot faster when I’m in a good mood.

DB: What would you like people who know absolutely nothing about crocheting to know about what you do?

CN: Crocheting is not just for grandmas. You can make a lot of really cool stuff. You can crochet clothes, actually, and a lot of people are into that right now. I’ve made a skirt, it’s really nice and I’ve honestly gotten a lot of compliments on it. So it’s really not just for grannies. You can make a lot of stuff for yourself or for your friends. … My mom is always asking me, ‘Why do you know how to crochet and I don’t?’ and I’m like, ‘I can teach you!’ and she’ll be like, ‘No, you’re such a granny.’

Compiled by Kyle Young, A&E contributor.