Sue Zann Toh

I don’t know what’s up with me and pandas lately. I’ve made 2 pandas in the past week or so, both were my own patterns.

Here’s panda #2… he’s nameless, I’ve been calling him Pandaball. It’s the first time I’ve used felt. I quite like the effect, it’s makes the black eye patch much neater and flatter.

Here’s panda #1 again:

I have four new friends to introduce.

First is Marcia the mouse. She’s the first female I’ve made. I don’t even know why they’re male or female, it’s just a feeling I get and we name them accordingly. I love the background in this shot.

This is Scotty’s brother, he’s nameless at the moment. And quite wonky. The white disc where his nose and mouth are and so crooked and in the wrong spot! I’m probably going to fix him in the future.

Here’s a shot of Scotty and his brother…

And this here is Yoda. He’s a lamb who likes his nap-nap. We called him Yoda because he looks like Yoda from Star Wars. His body is made from mohair yarn to give the him his fuzziness.

This is an un-named panda. I made him according to my own pattern, which I may or may not make public. He’s wonky, like most of my amigurumi, and I would change his hind legs if I make him a twin, and I would use black felt for his eyes (the crocheted black eye bits are too chunky), and… and… There’s a myriad of things I would change in this pattern, but oh well, he turned out pretty neat anyway.

I noticed that I sew things on wonky, so many of my amigurumi friends look… well… munted. Oh well, I still love them.

I get easily confused with all the different yarn and hook sizes that are on the internet. Australia and New Zealand’s labelling is different to the US and different to the UK. It would be nice if one day all countries can agree on one standard for labelling yarn and hook, but in the meantime, here’s a table to help de-mystify the different nomenclature.

Yarn

Needle

A couple of my amigurumi friends have gone out and about for a little bit.

Monty took a ride with me in a car. He’s helping me steer here:

Scotty decided that my pocket was a good place to hang out for a while.

I love making new amigurumi pals. Must be why I’m churning them out.

This here is Oscar the pink bunny. He started out as a fuzzy cat but then I realised the arms and legs of the fuzzy cat was way way way too big for the body as the pattern indicated. That’s probably because I was using normal yarn and not fuzzy yarn for the body. So with the “too small” body, joined on arms and legs that I made up myself. I’ll post the pattern later, I have all the stitches per round written down but it’s in my short-hand so no one will understand it if I post it as is.

Here’s a white Gabu. Don’t ask me what a Gabu is, you’ll have to ask the maker of the pattern. He was started early on as well, but I decided to pull out all his stitches and start him again. If you compare his stitches to the mouse below, you can tell that my single crochets are getting better.

I started this little guy ages ago. He was one of the first things I crocheted but never finished him until recently. You can tell he’s an early creation because his stitches are really inconsistent and loose.

I notice that all my amigurumi’s are male…

I’m having such an uninspired blog title finding moment… but regardless, here are the latest amigurumis.

I started this fellow ages ago, but didn’t have any eyes and didn’t want to stitch them on, so I ordered some eyes from craft.com.au and they arrived earlier this week so he could be finished. Only problem is that he looks a little evil. He was made using a pattern for a set of cupcake animals.

I made another frog using the frog pattern I wrote up the other day. His legs ended up longer than expected so I had to attach them higher on his body. I think it makes him look more froggy. He’s nameless at the moment, but his brother (the first frog) is called Monty.

Here’s Monty and his bro…

Lastly, I made this bear using this pattern and intended to give it away as a present. Well, turns out I got a little too attached to this fella and couldn’t part with him. His name is Scotty.

I made this amigurumi frog based on Amigurumi girl’s Mr Frog Pattern, but I changed a few things around. The head, eyes (the green part) and body followed the pattern, but the arms, legs and black and white parts of the eyes I made myself. I’ve only been crocheting for a week and I’m already modifying and making my own patterns! Crazy stuff.

Anyway, I thought I would post my version of the pattern with Amigurumi girl’s head, body and eye bits. I hope it makes sense!

Abbreviations
sc = single crochet
2sc = 2 single crochet stiches in a single crochet (invisible increase)
sc2tog = single crochet 2 stitches together (invisible decrease)
sl st = slip stitch
st = stitch
ch = chain

Head

Row 1: 6 sc in a magic ring (6)
Row 2: 2 sc in each sc (12)
Row 3: *sc in sc, 2sc in next sc, repeat from * (18)
Row 4: *sc in 2 sc, 2sc in sc, repeat from * (24)
Row 5: *sc in 3 sc, 2sc in sc, repeat from * (30)
Row 6-10: *sc in each sc, repeat from * (30)
Row 11: *sc in 3 sc, sc2tog, repeat from * (24)
Row 12: *sc in 2 sc, sc2tog, repeat from * (18)
Row 13: *sc in sc, sc2tog, repeat from * (12)

Bind and weave in end. Stuff with polyfill. Sew on mouth with red yarn.

Eye base

Row 1: 6 sc in a magic ring (6)
Row 2: 2 sc in each sc (12)
Row 3-5: *sc in each sc, repeat from * (12)

Bind and leave a long tail. Stuff. Attach to head using embroidery needle and tail.

Body

Row 1: 6 sc in a magic ring (6)
Row 2: 2 sc in each sc (12)
Row 3: *sc in sc, 2sc in next sc, repeat from * (18)
Row 4-10: *sc in each sc, repeat from * (18)
Row 11: *sc in sc, sc2tog, repeat from * (12)
Row 12-13: *sc in each sc, repeat from * (12)

Bind and leave a long tail. Stuff. Attach to head using embroidery needle and tail.

Arms
Row 1: ch 11, turn
Row 2: sc in each ch, starting from 2nd ch from hook (10)
Row 3 (toe 1): ch 3, turn, sl in each ch, starting from 2nd ch from hook, sl st to main arm (3 sl st)
Row 4 (toe 2): ch 3, turn, sl in each ch, starting from 2nd ch from hook, sl st to main arm (3 sl st)
Row 5 (toe 3): ch 3, turn, sl in each ch, starting from 2nd ch from hook, sl st to main arm (3 sl st)
Row 6: sl st in each st back up the leg (10 sl st), ch 1, turn
Row 7: Fold arm in half, sl through the 2 outer loops to join the halves (7 to 8 sl st)

Bind and leave a long tail. Close up hole in palm using embroidery needle and tail on the palm. Weave both tails up arm, you can shape the arm as you’re weaving if you wish. Attach to body to desired position using the long tail.

Legs

Row 1: ch 19, turn
Row 2: sc in each ch, starting from 2nd ch from hook (18)
Row 3 (toe 1): ch 4, turn, sl in each ch, starting from 2nd ch from hook, sl st to main leg (4)
Row 4 (toe 2): ch 4, turn, sl in each ch, starting from 2nd ch from hook, sl st to main leg (4)
Row 5 (toe 3): ch 4, turn, sl in each ch, starting from 2nd ch from hook, sl st to main leg (4)
Row 6: sl st in each st back up the leg (18 sl st), ch 1, turn
Row 7: Fold leg in half, sl through the 2 outer loops to join the halves (15 to 16 sl st)

Bind and leave a long tail. Close up hole in foot using embroidery needle and tail on the palm. Weave both tails up arm, you can shape the leg as you’re weaving if you wish. Attach to body to desired position using the long tail.

White of the eye

Row 1: ch 2
Row 2: 6 sc in the 2nd ch from hook (6)
Row 3: *sc in sc, 2sc in sc, repeat from * (9)
Row 4: sl next st

Bind and leave a long tail. Attach to front of eye base using the long tail.

Black pupils

Row 1: ch 4
Row 2: sl st to first ch to form a circle

Bind and leave a long tail. Thread both tails through the middle of the ring. Attach to front of white of eye on the eye base.

Amigurumi is a form of crocheting toys in a continuous spiral using mostly single crochets. It comes from Japan and it’s quite easy to pick up.

I’ve never crochet before and managed to make a few amigurumi toys, so it really isn’t very hard. I learnt from an online tutorial provided by Hook and Needles. There are a series of videos that teaches you everything you need to know, starting with the basics. I’ve had a look at a few tutorials online and found this to be the best one.

The first thing I made was an Octopus. I didn’t have any eyes so I stitched on Japanese style sleepy eyes. I liked this pattern because it was all in one pieces, so no joining needed.

Next I made a heart (the larger one in the photo below). I then realised I was crocheting incorrectly by only using the back loops! So I made a second heart, where I was doing single crochets properly and was really trying to keep the stitches tight. I think I went a little overboard with the “keeping stitches tight” because the second heart looks more like a bum than a heart!

Next I tried out the corpse bride. I didn’t make her a bride I just made her a corpse girl. I added the flower choker and changed the hair from the original pattern. I don’t think I’m done with her hair yet, I may add to it in the near future.

My latest completed amigurumi is my favourite so far. It’s an adorable frog. I used the pattern for the head, eyes and body, but modified the arms, feet and the black and white bits of the eyes. I’ll post the pattern I used for the arms and eyes later on.