Interview with Ralitza Dimtrova - zolayka

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Meet one very talented girl from our team - Ralitza Dimitrova - zolayka. Her shop is right here.


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Tell us about you. What are your passions and inspirations?

My name is Ralitza, I’m a single mom, meeting people maniac, working musician :-) My passions are…ops – really can’t answer this, coz I find passion and inspiration in almost everything. Sometimes getting really excited about small things, other time ignoring the whole world – everything depends on my mood.

Please tell us something about your art. Why exactly crochet?

What I expose in ETSY is just part of my world. I started to crochet for ETSY, coz lately I was knitting too much and needed something fresh for the start as a seller in ETSY. So I just picked up the crochet, but I haven’t given up on all the other things I love to do. Actually it’s hard to say why exactly crochet – just like that! Nothing special behind it :-)

In your work we can see both modern-looking and traditional designs; both colorful and monochrome compositions. It’s clear your mind is drifting in various directions. Is it difficult to experiment without losing your “signature”?

As I said before – it’s all about the mood. That’s why I’m drifting :-) The traditional designed stuff were the first my mother and aunt taught me to do, I was a little girl and I wanted to do what the women in my family are doing. So naturally – traditional knitting and crochet are the first experience. My mother’s still keeping my first knitted doily – such a free form interpretation :-) but we’re learning the whole life, aren’t we? Now , with the time it’s easier to experiment, coz I have a solid basic to start from….but still I need inspiration for to start a new project….often taking me long time to find the perfect shape that works for me. Searching through your ideas and getting the ideas completed as an item ready to show up – is the actual creating – the rest is business :-)

I would like us to talk about your tablecloths. Can you tell us something about this workmanship? How did you first started those designs?Listing

My mother and aunt were knitting these tablecloths since I was really little girl. They had a small women family business at the sea side – very successful I could tell. These tablecloths are done by following a certain pattern, often written by words and as far as I know they are very popular in Greece, Bulgaria and some parts of West Europe. I was thought to do this by the women in my family and I was very excited at the beginning but later found it kind of boring, coz you’re really not free to experiment with different shapes and designs until you were knitting these tablecloths whole your life. My aunt is making her own designs now, even being a 78 years old. To me it’s still a challenge :-) But can you imagine for these patterns to appear there must have been some really passionate lady to create them, hope one day I’ll be one of them.

What is the creative process for making those? How much time does one usually take to finish?

It all depends of the pattern, but it’s not quick knitting. The work is getting huge at some point and there are thousands of stitches to knit off. It’s not really creative, as I said above, it’s more about precision. The longer I was knitting a huge tablecloth – about 2 meters in diameter (80 inches) and it took me forever – whole month – following the pattern, trying to not get lost or do some mistake, coz raveling is a horrible thing to do :

There are a lot of flower and nature motifs in them. Why is that?

Have no idea! I guess coz flowers are beautiful. I guess coz the women making the pattern love the nature and were trying to bring the nature into the house through their creations.

Thank you very much for introducing us in this beautiful world!

You’re welcome :-)

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