My name is Kateryna Yevtushenko, and this is the story behind the brushes.

For most of my adult life, I lived in a world of logic. I studied physics and math, earned a Master's degree in System Analysis, and built a career as an analyst. But my heart has always belonged to art.

Since I was a little girl in Kyiv, I drew on everything I could find. My lecture notes were always filled more with doodles than with formulas. Art was a constant, quiet passion I dismissed as "just a hobby."

Then came the COVID lockdown. With the world on pause, I had time to reflect. That urge to buy an iPad (strictly for work, I told myself) turned out to be my ticket back to the art world. I fell in love with Procreate and began creating again.

The real turning point came when I found a box with my old embroidery samples from the 6th grade. Holding them, I felt an overwhelming desire to recreate those traditional, tactile stitches digitally. But the tools I needed simply didn’t exist.

So, I decided to make them myself.

Drawing on my analytical background, I spent over a year obsessively tweaking, testing, and refining. I was determined to create brushes that captured the authentic texture, depth, and character of real thread. The result was my first embroidery brush set, and the birth of bokettori.

What does "bokettori" mean?

The name is a fusion of two words close to my heart. "Boketto" is a beautiful Japanese word for the act of staring vacantly into the distance. "Ir" is the Lithuanian word for "and" (my heritage is Ukrainian and Lithuanian).

For me, bokettori is that quiet, daydreaming moment... and the creative spark that follows.

This journey back to art reminds me that our childhood dreams and "irrelevant" passions are the very things that make our stories unique. They shape us in ways we can't predict.

Thank you for being part of this community. I hope my tools inspire you to honor your own story and create something truly you.

With warmth,

Kate