Rewind '23: Meet the man who has crocheted over 300 figurines

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These stories encapsulate the inspirational, uplifting, quirky, or the just downright fun that makes Kelowna10 so different.

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After a shoulder injury made it impossible to continue playing the guitar, Christopher Burton was desperate for something to pour his creativity into.

His wife provided him with a crocheted monkey kit, almost as a joke at first.

“I figured, what the heck, I made it, and I kind of went, ‘Geez, that was fun. It was kind of like a puzzle. And I love puzzles. So, let's see what I can do,” Burton told Kelowna10. “[It] kind of took off from there; 300 and some odd later, here we are.”

Burton has become enamored with the hobby, likening it to following a recipe, taking the raw ingredients and working with them until the final product is achieved.

As a retired professional chef, he has quite a bit of experience with following recipes and likes to refer to his sewing patterns as such, believing it to be a bit cooler.

Learning a great deal of his skills through lessons he found online, Burton began to create more and more figurines, including ones from childhood cartoons, or creations he had seen in his travels.

Not long after his wife began to post them to Facebook, people started to gain interest in his work, and would begin to make special requests.

“Next thing you know, people are like, ‘Well, I'd really like to have a hat, or I'd really like to have a

you know, stuffed bear,” he explained. “So, I would end up doing the special requests.”

Over time, Burton’s work has become more and more popular, with his works being posted to his Facebook group Chris’ Creations.

In the future, he hopes to send his works to local women’s shelters, and if possible have a booth at a crafts market.

“I'm not looking to make a profit, I'm just looking to make enough to keep me in yarn,” Burton said. “Actually, I'm shocked at the people that want things that I make. I look at things [I make] and say, ‘Oh, it's all right.’ But people are like, ‘That's amazing, how did you do that?’, and that’s kind of nice.”