Minigurumi

I hope everyone had a really great Easter weekend!

Mine was very quiet, lots of chilling out with the hubster and making the most of not being woken up at 5.30am…

Part of all this chilling has been crochet, amigurumi crochet to be precise: having previously avoided amigurumi due to finding it pretty daunting, and not knowing what I’d do with the finished items, over the last few days I’ve really gone down that rabbit hole!!

I have posted about my freestyle panda for my sister-in-law, Anzac Bunny for my friend’s baby (his first Easter), and a little Piggy for another friend's daughter. This hasn't been the only amigurumi I've been working though...

After the first panda, I decided to have another go at a mini panda. This time I tried to create a more chibi style, with a big round head and little body.

The panda was ok, but the eye patches are a bit thick because it was DK yarn but at such a small scale, and consequently the eyes are a bit boggly. Plus I had to remake the ears about 3 times until they were ok… I also went a bit wrong when sewing up one of its legs, so it’s a little wonky in the leg department too, so I called it Peggy:

It was after this panda that I made Anzac Bunny, and having made him I was feeling very enthusiastic about amigurumi… 

I had forgotten about the stash of horrible yarn I had bought for the Frozen-inspired crochet at Christmas, and when I rediscovered it I decided to turn it into amigurumi. (The yarn is quite stiff and icky, and is kind of rough, but it turns out that it works great for amigurumi as the roughness helps to keep the stitches nice and tight, and the stiffness of the yarn helps the finished item to hold its shape.)

At this point it was nearly Easter, which I don’t normally mark in any other way than enjoying the long weekend off work, but this time I decided to make a little Easter bunny. Inspired by the fact that the bunny pattern for Anzac Bunny had been adapted from a teddy bear pattern, I decided to adapt my new panda bear into a bunny pattern.

I am so pleased with my little bunny! I embroidered a pretty Spring flower on her tummy, using the lazy daisy stitch and a French knot,

And I made a little pompom tail for her, so cute!

My husband liked this little mint bunny too, he named her Choc Chip (because she’s already Mint), and he chatted with her – apparently she said that I need to appreciate my husband lots because he’s really brilliant, and I should make him tea more often… Whose side is she on?? ;)

I was just getting into to the swing of this now, so I asked my husband if there was another animal he’d like me to have a go at. He wanted a turtle in the purple yarn, and he would call him Shelby – cute!

I made the same body and head pattern, but this time I shaped the head a bit differently after it was stuffed:

Then I hooked up a funky shell outfit for him, including a leftover scrap of neon yarn from the Disco Willow blanket. Very funky! 

Doesn’t Shelby look cute in his funky disco shell?

I was super-duper chuffed with how these little guys turned out, so I started thinking of all the other creatures I could make by adding particular features to my basic head/body pattern…  I have quite a list of possibilities to try out now!!

I hope you like these little guys as much as I do, feel free to add any suggestions to the list to try out!! :)

Edit to add: Since writing up this post I've made a few more, so I'll introduce those in another post! :)