Little Chicken

In an effort to learn the basics of amigurumi, I made a ball, a really bad one, that became a chicken. I was enormously pleased with my first effort.



Then suddenly it breeded! You leave a chick alone for a few minutes and suddenly you have two more turn up. They are tiny! How can anyone crochet something that small? I must try harder. Their wings have given away their parentage for I do believe they are related to Sam's rabbit!



This was all possible due to the great new 'Making Things Club' created by Nikki which meets once every two weeks in trendy Shoreditch. Last week was actually sock monster night, but crochet called me. Here is one of the brilliant monsters!

Bearfest

On a recent train journey, myself and a colleague knitted the same bear. They are technically twins as they were created in the same day. Look how different they turned out! I think it's the stuffing techniques myself. Can you guess which is mine? The clue is that I think my bear looks rather froglike. With that in mind I shall name him Monsieur LeFrog. He is a swash-buckler and if he had a moustache, he would tweak the ends into find points. I think my knitting has come on leaps and bounds and the smaller needles really helped this time. He's half the size of his older brother. I might try and create the same bear in crochet now.

Amigurumi Bears

Amigurumi is the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small stuffed animals and anthropomorphic creatures' according to Wikipedia. I am hooked. I decided to try knitting one first. So off I went to Etsyand found a great pattern by Amy Gaines. It took me ages to make it and compared to the lovely blue bear in the picture, my bear looks like it's a tramp. I made it with a friend who knitted hers in half the time it took me. Mine came out huge! I mean HUGE! I thought it was all about tiny, TINY animals. My bear is the equivalent of a 10lb baby when you've been assured it'll be 5lbs. He's like the tallest kid in school. He's full of holes as my increasing was very very poor. But he doesn't mind, he's bright pink and he doesn't care. He's the kind of kid who if they fell on you in the school playground, you'd have to be hospitalised. In a way this makes him tough without trying. Poor hokey bear. The moral of the story is 5mm needles are just far too big to not have big gaps where the stuffing shows through. I blame the needles see, not myself.

Today I went out and bought the thinnest wool I could find and the smallest knitting needles. Round two commences. After this I plan to try those funny round knitting needle thingies just as soon as I can trap someone in a corner who knows how to use them. Then I plan to crochet it. By the end I shall be ready to dive headfirst into Amazon.jp and buy these beauties