It’s hard not to aww hard when coming across Kiriki Press’s handmade toys. A printmaking graduate from the Ontario College of Art and Design, Michelle Galletta started Kiriki Press after she wanted to make her niece an embroidered doll but couldn’t find a pattern anywhere.
“I couldn’t afford to buy her anything, but I hoped to make up for it with my time,” she writes on her website. “I decided to learn how to embroider so I could make her a set of three owl dolls to play with.” She soon found out that it was difficult to find contemporary embroidery patterns that weren’t overly simplistic, let alone embroidered doll patterns. And so, she ended up designing her own. “As I was making Madeleine’s owls, I became fascinated with embroidery: the vibrant colors, the countless variety of stitches, the calming effect it had on me,” she writes.
After several years of improving her embroidery skills – and a ton of design work – Kiriki Press was born. “It was developed in the hopes of giving others the chance to make something precious with their own hands,” writes Galletta. As such the company produces D.I.Y. embroidery kits, screenprints, and other goods, meant to pass onwards her nifty designs.
Aside from making a small splash on social media (Kiriki Press’s Instagram page alone has thousands of followers), the company has been featured in publications like Canadian Living, Chatelaine, Bust Magazine, Homespun, as well as many other print publications and craft blogs.
Here are some of our favorite designs:
