When Olga Mihaylova arrived in the United States from Bulgaria with two young children and little connection to her new world, she couldn’t have imagined that twenty years later, she’d be crisscrossing the country, stringing stories one bead at a time.
“I didn’t know anybody,” Olga recalls. “But I’ve always loved working with my hands.”
That love became a lifeline. Today, the Pittsburgh-based artist is known for her strikingly soft, earth-toned jewelry—crafted entirely by hand using a rare and meditative technique called bead crochet. The process is meticulous: thousands of tiny glass beads, mostly from the Czech Republic, are strung onto nylon thread and then crocheted stitch by stitch into supple, wearable sculptures. Each piece is the product of hours of labor and years of quiet mastery.
“I used to do all kinds of beading stitches,” she says, “but in the last five to ten years, I’ve focused almost exclusively on bead crochet. It’s soft, it’s light—it’s something people can wear every day.”
Olga’s work is a staple at art festivals across the East and Midwest. This summer, she’ll appear at the Reston Fine Arts Festival in Virginia, Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Arts Festival, the Old Town Art Fair in Chicago, and Ann Arbor’s iconic Original Art Fair. But as she shared in a recent interview with Local Good founder Desiree Vuocolo, 2025 hasn’t been kind to artists.
“I did four shows in Florida this February,” Olga says. “The weather was perfect. The crowds were there. But no one was buying.”
For Olga and many like her, the slowdown isn’t just disappointing—it’s a direct threat to their livelihoods. “The shows are my main income,” she says. “And when you’re paying to travel, paying booth fees, buying materials—if the sales aren’t there, you feel it.”
This quiet crisis is reverberating through the handmade art world, particularly for full-time artists like Olga, who depend entirely on in-person fairs to support themselves. Desiree, whose platform Local-Good.com helps promote artists and extend their reach, says Olga’s story is increasingly common. “We want to give these artists a safety net,” she explains, “whether it’s helping them sell online or just making sure more people can find them.”
But Olga is no stranger to challenges. Born and raised in Bulgaria, a country with deep craft traditions but limited resources, she grew up learning to make do—and make beautifully. “We sewed our own clothes, knitted, wove,” she remembers. “The level of craftsmanship was so high, even if the materials weren’t.”
Ironically, it was only after moving to America that she discovered beading. A copy of Bead & Button magazine, a tutorial, and a desire to make beaded flowers set her on a new path—one that led to jewelry, and eventually, a niche style of bead crochet more popular in Germany and Russia than in the U.S.
Today, Olga teaches others, occasionally offering classes that draw from decades of trial, error, and devotion. “It would have been smarter to take a class,” she laughs, “but when you learn on your own, you make all the mistakes. And that makes you a better teacher.”
As for what’s next, she’s exploring new shapes and techniques—though, as with all her work, it’s a slow and thoughtful process. “They’re still mostly in my head,” she says. “But they’re coming.”
In a world that often favors the fast and disposable, Olga Mihaylova’s work is a quiet rebellion—soft, enduring, and threaded with patience. And perhaps, in that stillness, there’s hope not just for her art, but for the handmade community she represents.
“It’s never boring,” she says of her work. “It’s a never-ending fascination.”
And one that deserves to be seen.