We are the eleventh monkey creatures, and we all look slightly awkward. Our little felt family was unleashed into the world from Japan in 2009.
We are 100% handmade by our Dutch creator. Her name is Louana, but we like to call her "the Dutchie", and she tries to keep everyone updated on her life by blogging about it. We say 'tries', because she's perpetually behind on updating her blog because she loves creating us so much.
The Dutchie got inspired to create our little felt behinds during a visit to Korea in 2009, where she stumbled upon hundreds of colorful little leather monsters for sale in street stalls. Back in Japan, she started drawing her original animal designs and since she had no idea how to sew, she turned to the Internet to teach herself how to do decorative stitches. A few weeks later, the first of us creatures was born and numbered 1. She ended up numbering just the first 100 of us.
The Dutchie is one half of a very international couple. Her husband is Japanese. She grew up in the Netherlands and Belgium, he grew up in Japan. They met at Emory University in America. They did the (very) long distance thing through Skype for 3 years, and then she moved to Japan. Another 3 years later they got married in Osaka and then they moved back to the States together. After yet another 3 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, they moved to a beautiful small spa town in the middle of England's Peak District. Their first Japanese-Dutch little one will join them in April 2015!
P.S. Want to know why the Dutchie refers to herself as the Eleventh Monkey? Well, she was born on the 'eleventh' of August in the year of the 'monkey', according to the Chinese zodiac. So she just squeezed those two facts about herself together... Yeah, it's a bit weird, but we still love her ;).