My niece is doggy crazy. Real, plushie, animated or doodled, it really doesn't matter - she loves them all. So when it came to her second birthday, it was only natural to crochet her a dog of some kind. There are lots of patterns out there on the internet, but I really wanted to crochet something from this book that my mum had bought me for my birthday one year. The book is "Cute Crocheted Animals" by Emma Varnum, and can be found here.
The book itself is filled with easy to read patterns for a handful of animals - cats, rabbits, etc - and a lovely selection of outfits to crochet an entire wardrobe for your creations. The animals work up at around 10 to 12 inches, depending on the hook used, so in theory could also be used with many of the Build-a-Bear costumes.
At the time my niece had to most adorable little beagle puppy called Molly, and so I decided to make her a matching Molly dog. The book, as wonderful as it is, doesn't have a pattern for a dog, however!! This greatly surprised me, as a dog is probably one of the more popular crochet animals, surely? Up there with rabbits and cats, I'm sure. While the book didn't have a dog it *did* have a fox pattern, and so I decided to use that as a base. The colours and markings were almost perfect, however to be a beagle the ears definitely needed to go. I could probably have free-handed a pair of floppy ears, but I decided to be lazy and instead to search for a free pattern, and I found a perfect one on the Hello Stitches blog (the pattern is for an entire beagle, though I only used the ears!).
Apart from the ears, I followed the pattern "by the book", and I thoroughly enjoyed crocheting this little lady. The pattern was easy to follow, and she worked up pretty quickly! I can't say I'm a fan of carrying yarn for changing colours, but that's personal preference - I find it an awful waste of yarn. That said, it's better than the whole thing unravelling, so what can you do?
When it came to the wardrobe, I couldn't only do one outfit. Every little girl I know likes to be able to dress and undress their dolls and toys, so I made two outfits with the intention of making more at later points (which I still haven't done - Ooops!!) All of the clothing patterns I used can be found in the book, along with many more accessories, such as shoes, ties, etc. So this little doggo has a casual outfit, complete with shopping bag, for when she's popping about running errands, and then a sparkly, frilly outfit for going to parties! Maybe I went a bit gender-stereotypical with that (bad Tig!) but there was so much to choose from!
As with the plushie, the clothes pattern worked up very quickly and were easy to follow, although I have to admit to getting a little bored by the time I was making the second outfit. But then, I was using up scrap yarns for that outfit that I wasn't particularly fond of. The crazy thing is, I later went on to make my daughter a matching Molly cardigan, and she's worn it quite a lot, so even though I found the small one boring and didn't like the yarn it can't have been that bad!!
Amigurumi Amish Animal Puzzle Balls! Amigurumi Amish Animal Puzzle Balls!
Amigurumi Amish Animal Puzzle Balls! Amigurumi Amish Animal Puzzle Balls!
Amigurumi Amish Animal Puzzle Balls! Amigurumi Amish Animal Puzzle Balls!
Amigurumi Amish Animal Puzzle Balls! Amigurumi Amish Animal Puzzle Balls!
Ahem.... Good to finally get that out of my system...
The amigurumi Amish animal puzzle balls (or amamani for short) are exclusively designed by Dedri Uys of Look At What I Made. I have blogged about her patterns many times before - I can't help it. They're great! The animal puzzle ball patterns themselves are available from a variety of sources. The free ones such as the plain ball, or Olive the Octopus, can be found on her website, while the paid ones can be found in downloadable PDF form from Annies, or paperback form from Amazon. Apparently I'm crazy, as I bought the digital download but then decided that I wanted the paper copy of the patterns anyway. (Or maybe they're just that good!)
Currently, I have completed the turtle ball - who we are calling Atuin - for my daughter, and am partway through the dinosaur for a friends' nephew. These patterns are actually much simpler than I originally thought - so much so that I can already complete the basic puzzle ball pattern from memory, without the book to hand. They don't take long, either. Or at least they wouldn't, if I wasn't juggling my nursing daughter as well as my crochet!
The yarn for this project came from my new local yarn store - Westcliff Wools. I had originally planned on using left over yarn from my crochet Christmas jumper four years ago, but I couldn't find it. I assumed that I had used it in my Fugly blanket, and after I had been to the yarn store and bought new yarn I found the original yarn in my wardrobe. Ooops! Still, it spurred me to sort my yarn out into colour coded bags so that I would always know where everything was in the future!
The yarn used for the turtle was a chunky weight yarn - the pattern called for an Aran, but there weren't enough suitable colours at the store in that weight. I did um and ah for a while, weighing up the choice of a funky coloured or a larger turtle, and as much as my friends were pushing me for bright colours, I had my heart set on more realistic colours - well, I have to use my degree somewhere, right? To that end, I left the store with three 100g balls of King Cole Big Value chunky, one eack of Bayleaf, Caramel, and Koala for the turtle, as well as two balls of King Cole Fashion Aran for the dinosaur - one each in Stonewash and Hint of Denim.
The pattern is pretty easy to work up - sometimes in the round and sometimes with rows for shaping - and in total it took me about six days, on and off (though mostly off!) That said, I did get a little confused when trying to navigate the book - Rather than step by step, the turtle pattern starts off with "Make x number of wedges from this page", and "crochet this number of lids from this page", before continuing to give the instructions for the head, legs, tail, etc. In addition, the back leg follows on directly from the front flipper - something that took me quite a while to figure out. The flipper ends with "do not finish off", but you flip over the page and there's a new heading and you're back to "row 1". However, I eventually worked it out, and once I did I had no further issues, and overall I enjoyed the pattern enough that I do plan on making several more. I definitely would like to make the Octopus, and I think the basic ball pattern would make a great gift for future babies.
Except my baby, apparently. The turtle didn't impress her... Maybe my friends were right and I should have made it more colourful?
Ah well, maybe she'll grow into it?
Always on the lookout for new patterns, I jumped at the chance to crochet something new when a friend asked me to make a couple of ninjas for her. She wanted specific ninjas in bright pink and purple - she had seen pictures of them online and fallen in love with them - and I was fortunate enough to find the pattern on Amazon for relatively cheap.
The pattern is relatively simple, although I still don't quite understand the unusual pattern of increases when crocheting in the round. I find that - more often than not - a pattern requires increases every n*6 stitches. This pattern didn't follow that formula. It still works up lovely though, and was a welcome distraction from the multitude of blankets I have been making! The pattern worked up so quickly that I feel fairly confident that I could make several of these in a day, were I not baby-wrangling at the same time. It was darned cute, too! I used scrap DK acrylic yarn and a 4mm crochet hook.
In fact, they are so cute that said baby saw them, and she fell in love with them too!! Have you tried telling a four month old that they can't have something? Ok, she is a bit too young to understand reasoning. I might have gotten away with putting the ninjas high on a shelf while she wasn't looking...but....well....she's just too damned cute as well! I can't say no to her! So against my better judgement I let my baby play with the purple ninja. She played, she drooled, she chewed and she threw the ninja around... Luckily the ninja held up through it all, but I couldn't send my friend a drooly ninja... So I made another one!!
To thank her for letting my daughter claim the first ninja, I also made her a baby elephant, Meimei. Meimei is a free pattern, available from Look At What I Made. As a side-note, this blog happens to be the same pattern blog from which I got the pattern for Sophie, and the same designer who has written the patterns for the Amish puzzle balls I am currently making. I love these patterns so much and will often browse the page looking for new ideas.
There are several elephant patterns by this designer, and they all use the same head pattern. I own the pattern for the elephant puzzle ball, and had previously crocheted the elephant lovey for a friends baby, so I felt confident crocheting this mini elephant plushie.
Meimei herself is easy to make, and as all of the pieces are crocheted into the body as you go, there's actually no sewing involved! Amigurumi often involves a lot of sewing, and the Little Lady Ninjas are no exception - arms and legs must be sewn onto the body, which must be sewn onto the head. It's not a difficult task, but it gets very boring very quickly. It's nice to find a pattern which doesn't need any sewing. One downside to Meimei is that I found it very difficult to place the eyes levelly due to the asymmetric way the head/face is formed. Maybe it's just me - again I used scrap yarn and a 4mm crochet hook, so maybe I just crocheted too tightly for the safety eyes to fit in the right place.
Difficulties aside, she was still an enjoyable make, and I hope she's very happy in her new home!
Yes - my name is Mister Fliiiibble,
Mister Flibble, Wibble, Nibble, Dibble!
Yes - my name is Mister Fliiiiibble,
Mister Flibble, Wibble, Nibble, Woo!
Meet Mr Flibble:
Mr Flibble is a mischievous imp from the bottom of the garden. Mr Flibble likes mud pies, throwing snowballs, and making little green stains appear on your trousers when you're sitting in the grass unexpectedly. He communicates in a series of squeaks, and you can detect his presence by the mysterious rattling sound he makes wherever he goes.
Mr Flibble is a toy I made for my daughter after spending around 9 months making blankets. I needed a break!! I was so bored of squares it was unreal. I still am, to be honest... So one day I went browsing through my book collection and I found "Edward's Imagination Emporium". It's a book some good friends bought me for my birthday nearly 2 years ago, and I never really did anything with it until now. Mr Flibble is a very basic model from the book, and he took a whole 50g ball of Wilkos Stripe yarn. But he didn't take very long to work up - near instant gratification. With an large bag of squeakers and rattlers to use up from a project I never even bothered with, he seemed the perfect make.
After he was finished, I was flipping through the book and I realised I could probably make a unicorn pretty easily... So I did. Jacqson even has a butt-heart. He took me a lot longer because of his curly mane and tail though. Trying to find the time to finish each one of those spirals while wrangling a small infant was not easy. It took WEEKS. As such, I probably won't make another one!! He too used a whole 50g ball of yarn, albeit this time from Poundland sparkle yarn.
Like Mr Flibble, his arms rattle and his feet squeak. Unlike Mr Flibble, whose limbs are just sewn on as per the book's instructions, Jacqson has limbs that were crocheted into the body as I went, for safety. And if I were to ever make a third toy from the book, I would change the pattern slightly so that the limbs crochet from the feet/hands up, rather than from the shoulder/hip down. I have more faith in my starting chain to hold true and not work loose. Maybe I'm weird?
It's all irrelevant though. All that matters is that he's a hit - My daughter loves him! So, I've been inspired to make more toys for her. Plushies, stackinf rings, Amish puzzle balls, dolls, even crochet play food! She's going to be drowning in crochet toys!!
More unicorns! I swear, this little guys are the only thing people would have me crochet! Beautiful blankets, creeper toys, even the My Little Pony plushies I have planned.... Nope! None are enjoyed as much as these little chibi unicorns! I think I have made nine of them so far, maybe more! Most of them have been gifts, but since people have been asking me to make them for other people, I have started asking for a donation to the Aching Arms charity. These guys made such a difference when we lost our son last year, and it's nice to be able to give something back. I usually ask for a teddy bear to be donated in Quinn's name - a plushie for a plushie seems fair to me! It seems like such a small thing, but having that bear to cuddle when you have to walk away and leave your baby in the hospital - It's actually a very big thing.
As always, the pattern used is the Shy Little Unicorn, by Ana Paula Rimoli. The pattern is available as a paid download from Ravelry, but I have it as a pattern in a book - "Amigurumi Toy Box". It is a very simple pattern, and I have had very little difficulty in mastering it. In fact, parts of it are becoming permanently embedded in my memory now. It's not often I have to pull the pattern out to make a unicorn - usually only when it's been a while, to refresh my memory!
The first unicorn was actually finished a few weeks ago, before the end of the summer holidays. I started the latest three plushies at the same time, but one of them had a rush on it as it was for my son's LSA at the school he just left. Of course, it had to be ready before school broke up, and so it was the first to be finished. Fortunately, the unicorn was much loved! I do like it when gifts I make are appreciated - A lot of effort goes into them.
The remaining unicorns were a little less hurried. The first is a gift to my niece for her first birthday. I have made unicorns for all of my nieces, and so I couldn't let this milestone pass without making one. I'm hoping she will like it, though I am sure she will be completely spoiled on the day. I haven't seen a kiddies birthday go by yet in our family where the kiddie isn't spoiled - My son lead the way for this. Ooops! The second was a request from a friend, who wanted to give a unicorn to his friend as a birthday present at the end of August. It's finished well in advance (for a change!) and has already been delivered.
Hopefully I won't have to make any more unicorns for a while. They're very cute, I do agree, but making so many of the same thing can get very dull after a time. It becomes almost a chore to make something so cute, and surely that in itself is a crime to crochet?
As I find myself melting over my current WiP's, I can definitely say that Summer is well and truly here! Today is the hottest day of the year so far in the UK, with temperatures reaching 35C. Melty!!
Summer brings with it the end of the school year, which is especially important this year as my son will be making the transition from primary to secondary school. He is rather upset about leaving, as he will not only be leaving his friends behind (he is going to a different school than the majority of his friends) but he will also be leaving behind some wonderful teachers. One of the people he is leaving behind is the LSA who has been working with him for the most of the last seven years!
Proud parent moment: He received the Headteacher's award at his school yesterday!! Lookit how grown up he has gotten!!
As such, I have promised that I will make a unicorn for him to give to her. I am currently making another three of these unicorns in total - one for my son's LSA, one for a friend who has put in a request (I did say they were popular!!) and one for my baby nieces first birthday next month.
The pattern used is the same one I use for all over my unicorns, and can be found over on Ravelry. Be warned though - it is not a free pattern. It is wonderful though. The directions are simple, and it works up quickly and easily. I could probably put one together in a day, if I tried, with the mane being the most time consuming part - As I give my unicorns to children, I have to make especially sure that the mane is well secured!
I just use any yarn I have lying around in my stash - I never buy anything specially for it - and the customisation possibilities for this pattern are amazing. It would make a great zebra, give it a yellow and orange mane and you have a Ponyta, or freeform some wings and you could turn it into a great Twilight Sparkle allicorn lookalike! Out of all of the patterns in my library, it is definitely the one that has got the most use.
On that note, my son's unicorn needs to be ready by tomorrow morning.... So I better get a wriggle on!
