Tag: amigurumi

Little ‘un

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So, after the complete joy of finishing elephant number one (who, weirdly, is much loved but still nameless) I decided I should make another one. You know, just to see if the first one was a fluke, and to indulge my odd habit of making the same thing in different thread for no apparent reason.
I only really have one other thread for this kind of thing, and that’s some crochet cotton I bought online. I’ve got three colours, beige, white and dusty pink – and thus elephant number two had no choice, she was to be made those colours, or nothing.
I’ve used this thread before – I made a monkey with it, but what I found amazing this time is that if I’d made her any smaller, the backs of the safety eyes wouldn’t fit in her head. Poor wee thing. She really is quite small.
As I’ve mentioned before, the pattern for this is really nice. I made the head in super quick time – you know when you’re on a roll and just want to get things made?
I dawdled a bit with the rest, mainly as I’m still having a few neck/shoulder issues and I’m trying not to do stuff for too long. I was going to add two buttons to her dress – hence the slightly odd positioning of the one you can see, but even though that button is weeny, there still wasn’t much room for another.
I spent a silly amount of time choosing ribbon for her scarf. She was really rooting for bright red with white dots, but could I find that style ribbon thin enough? No, I could not – thanks for asking. She quite likes this daisy pattern though, and so we’re sticking with it for now.
I actually went ribbon shopping in Liberty (as well as John Lewis), and an assistant came over and squealed a bit when she saw her. As she very kindly helped me look, she asked if I would be selling her. I was bowled over with flattery, but I did say that she’d be about £300 at the rate I crochet and I wasn’t sure anyone had quite that much money to spend on… Well…
What exactly *is* she? Well. Half way through making her, I’d decided she should be called Atish, which I know is a boys name, but sounded like a good name for a shrew. (Atish Shrew! Bless you, etc). But she’s a kind of babyelephantyshrewymousey kind of thing, of course! I’m rather offended you couldn’t tell.

Some things are so hard to photograph

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Like this wee lady for example:

Honestly! If she wasn’t snuffling at the camera, the camera was misbehaving in low light. I swear I’d post a lot more if I could just get a decent photo of some of the things I’d been doing. Anyway – a baby mousiephant. More when I’ve got a better shot!

Knitted Amigurumi

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I have a few things to blog about, by no daylight time to take any pictures! I’ve been making a few tiny tiny things which will make more sense with photos, but in the meantime I stumbled across Dangercrafts. They sell fantastic patterns for knitted toys, like this:

and this

I can’t actually knit (more of a crochet girl), but they’re so nice, I thought I should share, just incase you can. (Because, y’know, you probably *should*)

In the meantime, I’m trying to think of a bigger crochet project to make. Like an afghan or a blanket – but… I dunno. Not a hexagon one or a ripple one, because as nice as they are, they wont really go with our house. (Not that I know what would, actually…) Also I made a hexagon the other day and managed to make it with one side too many, which was rather impressive…

I was thinking about making this though – because it is beautiful:

This is made by Yarn Theory, on Flickr. She did a fantastic job – and its actually much nicer than the one shown in the pattern. So we shall see. If you have any suggestion dear lone reader, let me know. Thanks!

Trouble in toytown

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I’ve been making this monkey for what feels like forever. I started before Christmas and it seemed to be working up pretty fast. I was making it as a gift  for a little lady I know, (very little) but then realised actually she was too little, so all urgency was off. Which was lucky, as I couldn’t find any eyes the right size.

I continued after Christmas, but had lost enthusiasm – mainly for the fact I wasn’t sure about the cotton I was using. I actually really like the cotton, but I’m not sure it’s right for this kind of thing. I’m really picky, I know that  – but actually, you see more of the crochet in this than you do the character of the monkey. You can see every stitch. With thinner cotton, the stitches are still visible, but of course they’re smaller, so you see more of the monkey and less of the crochet… With wool, the stitches blend in more because the texture is fuzzier. Does this make any sense? I look at the monkey above and I see more of the fact it’s a bit of crochet than I do that it’s a monkey, and that’s wrong.

Also, I couldn’t get the accessories right. I made a shoulder bag; didn’t look right. I tried a cotton scarf; didn’t look right. I tried a ribbon one; again not right – wasn’t right as a more formal tie, either. I wanted to make a hat; couldn’t face it. In the end I found something I’d put to one side a while back and pulled it apart, and it became the top part of the hat. Making the rest of the hat was easy, and I decided to finish it off with a little flower. Having said that, this has always felt like a boy monkey to me, so now I can only really think of him as a cross dresser.

Sheesh. Who knew hobbies were so *hard*. This is meant to be fun, right? We need to live together for a bit i think (not you and I, although I’m sure that would be lovely, but the monkey and I), so I can see more of the monkey and less of an annoying thing that i had to get over with. Poor chap. Chapess. Monkey.

PS. I should’ve called this blog Occasional Monkey, shouldn’t I?