Thursday 8 September 2011

Amigurumi in the house

So I said last year that I wanted to be a bit more adventurous with my crochet activities and I think that really I haven’t tried hard enough. I’m still Queen of the Blankets, although I think I should get points for learning how to ripple.

I’ve done my ripple and I did a little granny stripe for my blankets for PreemiesUK, and I tried out a new border on one of those blankets too.
And actually I tried out some bunting at the beginning of the month that I didn’t blog about because
a) life was mental, and
b) all the post would have said is “I tried out some crochet bunting” and that’s just boring.


I do plan on doing the whole crochet bunting thing but I will need more yarn to do it. Considering that I’ve pretty much spent the whole year working with my scraps and from yarn donated by the Yarn Fairy the thought of actually having to spend money on yarn makes me a little breathless. Anyway, crochet bunting might appear at some point. And it does represent a little branching out.

But I knew that I wasn’t really trying hard enough. How about an animal? It would be brilliant but what about the potential of making something only to have someone go “Oh wow. What is it?” Crushing I tell you, crushing.

But then I saw this book which is basically just crocheted aliens. Which means that you can deftly avoid the awkward “What is it?” question by saying “Ha it’s just a cute alien thing! It’s supposed to look weird.” Success.

As with all these things, they’re really not that difficult, they just require you to sit still and be quiet and focus for a few minutes, all things which do not come easily to me. But I bought a book and settled myself down to have a go.

And what do you know? They’re not that hard at all. I started late on Sunday evening and by late Monday morning I had a stuffed and sewn together 3 headed alien. Marvellous.


Ok so his colours aren’t great but seeing as he was just for practice I’m not going to feel too bad about it.

Another reason that I’m enjoying these guys is that you need some pretty tight tension so make sure the stuffing doesn’t come through and I naturally seem to have that so for once it’s working in my favour. Also, because they're just made up of random shapes you can quite easily swap and change body parts and make up your own monster if you feel like it.

But then a fever took hold and before Monday night was out I had a snakey caterpillar thing to add to the amigurumi mix. See even I was brave enough to change him, he comes with a little hat in the book but I decided to make him some horns, following the pattern from another alien.


I have so far held myself off making more but it’s inevitable that more are going to happen. Mostly because I went out to Hobbycraft on the Tuesday and bought EYES. Eyes for my aliens. The only thing holding me back is the stupid sensible side of my brain that is saying, “What on earth are you doing? Why are you making these? What are you going to do with them?”

And I really don’t know, I don’t know who I could make them for because they’re not suitable for little ones given the detachable nature of the eyes. I don’t know what Hull has in the way of craft markets and stuff. Meh.

Anyone want one?

Snakey caterpillar thing?

No?

6 comments:

  1. Haha that's exactly what I was thinking, what are you going to do with that?!! lol (you can tell I'm feeling the pressure of getting rid of clutter in the house!)

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  2. These look really cool, sometimes it's ok to make something kinda pointless! I think you could make the three headed one into a baby toy by not giving it legs but adding more heads. And if you filled each one with something different it would be like those scrunchy/rattle type toys. And you could sew eyes so it would be kid safe. Just an idea!

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  3. They are pretty fun! Good for stretching your skills...I should get off this computer and get more creative...no I really should...xxx

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  4. Amigurumi are fun. Make some more, string them up and voila! a baby mobile!

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  5. you need to give them to all your friends for christmas presents with a little card stating their name and a bio about them. your friends will love it! :-D

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  6. I love ugly cuddly toys- lobsters, lizards, crabs, anything that no-one else loves, I love them!

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