Biofore Magazine 2020

FEATURE

55

she also occasionally travels the world leading crochet workshops. Her love for handicrafts stems from childhood. Her father is a carpenter, and her mother, a textile worker. “We’ve always been a really DIY fam- ily,” Mills says. “We had all the time and space in the world to try out and experi- ment with all kinds of things, pushing our boundaries in what we could and couldn’t do in handicrafts.” Later, her studies turned her into an arts-and-crafts professional. Although she hadn’t taught whittling before being approached by Taito, she’s very familiar withworking withwood. During her stud-

ies at a university of applied sciences, she had access to all kinds of tools, even if she looked a bit out of place in the woodwork- ing studio with her signature 1950’s-style dresses and high heels. “Being able to use the facility at school was what really opened up the world of wood to me,” she recalls, “even if I looked a bit strange next to all themachinery.” Forming bonds What Mills particularly appreciates about crochet and whittling is that they’re both very simple and easy – in other words, ac- cessible. The tools required – be it a knife or a crochet hook – are affordable (or even

“The skill of whittling is part of folklore that is at risk of disappearing.”