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Elena Carrillo is almost always creating something, especially with a crochet needle. This resident of Cortes de la Frontera in Malaga province's Serranía de Ronda started when she was just seven years old, thanks to her grandmother. Today, aged 48, she has almost 100,000 followers on YouTube (Elena's Crochet Y Punto), around 18,000 on Instagram (@elenascrochetypunto) and the same number on Facebook (Elena's Crochet). To sum up, she is an influencer of all things related to knitting and crochet, growing her online presence from her home town of Cortes de la Frontera, from where she designs her own garments and then teaches others how to make them, putting her creations online but, above all, really making known her family heritage for knitting and crochet.
Elena combines this dedication to the craft of crochet with managing a fashion boutique in Ronda, which she owns together with her sister. She makes jumpers, cardigans, jackets, accessories, skirts, dresses, scarves, hats, even bikinis and trousers - she'll try anything once. "I'm always crocheting and, when I'm not, I'm thinking about it", says this woman from Cortes whose passion for needles, crochet hooks and balls of wool has roots that go back to the hard times she had to face in her childhood, when her father died and she was only seven years of age. Her mother was left alone to support the family and her maternal grandmother, then living in La Línea, moved to Cortes to help look after Elena and her siblings aged four and nine.
"She was always knitting or crocheting. I remember her clutching a little knitting bag in her hand even when we went for a walk. She shared her hobby with me. I guess it was a way to keep us entertained when she didn't know what to do with three small children. My sister also learned some, but I was completely hooked," she says, adding that the craft for her was a "lifeline to keep me from falling into sadness." She continues: "While I was working the wool, I didn't think about the tragedy I was going through, about the loss of my father. Knitting and crochet for me are like seeing a hidden beauty in the bad. It requires a lot of concentration, you can't think about anything else. You are not bored. It gave me happiness then." At another time in her life, when she was in her twenties facing a health problem with several operations and almost a month in hospital, crocheting again helped her: "I did crocheting in hospital while running a fever....The nurses were taken aback." Also, when she was on the train to Madrid for medical tests, before her hospital admission, she got busy on the journey. "People were surprised to see me crocheting when I was 20 years old," she says.
Although this craft has always been Elena's hobby, it was before the pandemic that she started making her own patterns and exclusive designs. "I used to watch tutorials on the internet and my son told me that I could do it better, so he encouraged me to create my own channel", she explains. So she did, always worried that one day she would run out of ideas, except that hasn't happened yet, quite the opposite in fact as she says she doesn't have time to make all the ones she wishes she could. She makes and finishes two creations a week and often has a third one under way. "Some people think I have a machine... but there is no such thing as a crochet machine," she says.
Elena is convinced that everyone can crochet as it is very easy, and so she encourages people to take it up. "Everyone can do it, there are garments that may seem difficult, but they are not," she assures us. "What I like most is looking for ideas, mixing colours.... Besides, with crochet items grow faster and you can make beautiful things with only a few stitches. It's a perfect technique." It is clear that her grandmother is often on her mind: "It's as if she was making it. My first garment was a scarf, with her. She helped me make a dress, which I have kept. She bought me a magazine, she couldn't read and I helped her, it was the last thing I made with her. Then my first big job was a quilt for a double bed," she recalls.
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