All the blisters have healed a bit, so I made myself another amigurumi, a Nintendo inspired one this time. This pattern for a Super Mario Mushroom I got from the WolfDreamer’s website. I followed the pattern with regards to the body, but I enlarged the white dots a bit more (start with magic loop 5sc, continiously increase with 2, until about 3,5 rounds. The top of the mushroom is very open, so the top dot needs to cover at least that. I used Catania 0115 (red), Catania 0105 (white) and Catania 0110 (black) on a size 2 hook.

I’m on an amigurumi roll! Even though I had planned to do a pattern from my book next, it didn’t work out that way. When I was browsing through free patterns online while eating my breakfast, I came across this pattern for amigurumi Kokeshi dolls by Suncatcher Craft Eyes, and fell in love. I spent the afternoon and evening making this cute doll.

I used Schachenmayr Catania cotton (white 0105, red 0115, brown 0179 and black 0110) and a left over purple ribbon I had. I followed the pattern, however I made two reducing mistakes in the body, and I added a lot more rows to the hair (I think about three or four to the main part, and three more to the half circle. I stuffed it with fiberfill, and if you’re real careful, it even stands on its own!

After making the cherries as my first Amigurumi project, I wanted to make a little creature. All the patterns in my book are pretty complicated (lots of parts) and I wanted to start out small, so I picked this pattern (link) of a little mouse to try out. I stitched it using Schachenmayr Catania cotton (white 0105, brown 0179 and black 0110) with a size 2 (EU size) hook, stuffing it with fiberfill. The body I made on Wednesday, and took me about and hour and a half. I spent about an hour and half on the ears and the finishing on Thursday. I wanted some black plastic eyes, but my local store didn’t have any, so I just used some black thread, put two knots in it, and attached it to the head. All in all I think it turned out real well, and I am ready for a bigger project!

On some of the geeky craft blogs I follow one of the crafts you see a lot is Amigurumi. Amigurumi is Japanese for “knitted stuffed toy”, but you can also crochet them (most are crochet). When we visited Maastricht last weekend I picked up a book about Amigurumi with instructions and several patterns, and I figured I would give it a try.

I picked up some cheap acrylic “wool” and some crochet hooks and sat down on Tuesday night with my book to try it… It was a a lot harder than it looked! I couldn’t even do the magic loop with which these pieces usually start. But, in a moment of need, YouTube is your friend. There are some great instructional videos on there that helped me understand the magic loop, and showed me how to increase and decrease my stitches. So, on Tuesday I just fiddled around and learned a few things. Firstly, the wool I got was workable, but made things a lot harder than they could be. Secondly, the recommended stitchmarkers were a must have, because I was forever losing count of my rounds.

So, on Wednesday after work I went to my great local craft shop that always has everything I want. I picked up Schachenmayr Catania cotton yarn, in the colors red, green, broken white and black. And that evening I set to work again. The first thing I wanted to try were to make cherries. I had seen the video on YouTube and figured they would be small and easy to try. I stitched my first cherry using a size 3 (EU size) hook, and it didn’t come out real nice. I also didn’t like my decreases as they left the top of the ball open and flat. The next one I made, I resolved to stitch even neater, and to use my size 2 hook. It did make it a bit tight and stiff, but I think it came out ok. I stitched the second cherry in the same manner, and then made the stem. The pattern/instructions I took from this YouTube video (link), which were very clear and simple. It took me about two hours to make, including the ball I didn’t use. I stuffed them with fiberfill. The red was Catania 0115, green was Catania 0224. The tops (not pictured) still don’t look like I want them too, as the decreases leave an open hole. However, I read later online that you can use only the top thread of the stitch to decrease, and I tried this on a later project, this works better. I also think it is because the ball is so small (1x 6sc, 4x 12sc, 1x 6sc).