Stuffing For Brains

Painguin is a special sort of amigurumi. It was the most detailed and challenging amigurumi I'd made by this point. I was really excited about it when my friend/co-worker requested this particular guy. Painguin is his comic hero that he made up one day and draws all the time at work. Here is the execution along with the design he gave me:

I absolutely winged this pattern. I used elements from other patterns that looked similar to what I wanted. For example, the feet were made from a pattern for a lion main. A lot of things I also made up. This was the most embroidery I'd done to date, as well. I'm hapyp with everything on him, with the exception of how low the nose is. I was annoyed once he was finished with that the nose was so low, especially in consideration of how high it is in the picture. But it happened because it was the first thing I put on, before the eyes and tummy. My co-worker, however, was absolutely thrilled with the way he came out, so I guess that it's all good. ^__^

I think the blue yarn used in this is Caron Simply Soft Brites, Berry Blue, but it might also be Bernat Satin, Cobalt. I'm really not sure, as I didn't keep record of the yarns I used at this point. I don't know about the rest of the yarn.

Painguin was made in January of 2009.

A friend of mine -- you'll find a lot of these start with "my friend asked for" or "I made this for a friend who" and so on -- anyway, my friend is an anthropologist and archeologist and works with bones all the time. So naturally, she asked me if I could make her a skull.  The pattern is from Crafster.org, by a member called NerdyCrochetGal (pattern found here). My friend picked out the buttons she wanted for the eyes, because she didn't want roses.

We realized, after it was made, that the skull actually looked a bit like the skull shaped entrance to a local burger joint called The Vortex. I actually don't know what kind of yarn I used for this, because my friend provided the yarn in a ball, which I used. I like this guy, and he hangs out on my friend's desk at work. :D

This skull was made in January of 2009.

In the library I work at, we have a lot of crochet books, but not a lot with amigurumi patterns in them (well, we do now, but we didn't when I started making them). One book we have in the kid's section is called Kid's Crochet, by Kelli Ronci, with patterns for pillows, scarves and things -- but also a couple dolls and cute little cupcakes! The cupcake pattern was actually intended to be a pincushion, but I just made them for decoration. The pattern had little bead sprinkles and maybe a cherry on top, but I just put eyes on and left it at that!

The purple one was for my mom and the green one was for one of my friends.

I was experimenting with textures when I made these guys. The green one's frosting was in my, at this point, standard texture. I made the purple one second, and decided to turn it inside out to use this neat swirly pattern that looked very frosting-like look to them. Every other cupcake after that was made with the swirly frosting texture.

The other thing I really like about these little guys was the yarn used for the cupcake portion of them. The moment I saw it in the store, I was like, "Oh man! This is totally like funfetti cake mix!" I had to buy it and make a cupcake out of it. So I did. ^_^

Yarn:
Caron Simply Soft Brites - Limelight
Caron Simply Soft Brites - Grape
Caron Simply Soft Tweed - White

Why do birds... suddenly appear... every time... you are near? Just like me, they long to be... close to you~

So the friend who I made the bomb for actually requested these adorable love birds. The pattern came from the Lion Brand website, as you'll find is common with many of my amigurumi -- especially the first ones.

Sorry about the awkward photo... I had no idea how to make them stand up for the camera. Anyway, my friend who asked for the lovebirds picked out the yarn for them. I was sort of... unaware at the time how important it is to make sure the yarn is the same gauge. Even when the package says they're the same, you should still be sure of it. :P I did not when she picked out the colors, so the brown bird is significantly smaller than the pink one... which means the pink wings are huge and the brown wings are tiny. Luckily, she liked that, so it didn't matter. But from then on, I was far more careful.

Yarn:
Brown - Moda-Dea bamboo yarn
Pink - Cotton Ease, berry

These lovebirds were made in January of 2009.

...But he doesn't.

A friend of mine has this series of drawings she does called Squishies. One of my favorites is the comic with Mike and No. No is the one blushing and Mike, obviously, is the one with the bomb. Anyway, I had no idea what I was doing, but I just winged this as I made it: The gift package bomb.

I don't think I can even tell what yarn I used for this, it was just whatever I had around. My two favorite parts of it, though, are the bit "flame" at the end of the fuse and the yellow "tape" that holds the "gift wrap" together. It's kind of hard to see in the image, but it's right there under the bow on the bottom left picture.

The artwork featured in the corner is the actual image my friend made. You can see her other work here.

This bomb was made in January of 2009.

My very first amigurumi was an octopus, made from a Lion Brand pattern. I was actually at Joann with my mom, who was buying yarn for a friend's going away party and, because I knew how to crochet, I thought I'd buy some yarn in a color I liked. I had no idea what I was going to make, but I liked the color, so I figured I'd find something to make! The yarn was Bernat Satin, Forest Mist Heather. I took to the internet that night and hunted down various crochet patterns. That's when I stumbled upon Lion Brand's website. They had this featured pattern of this super adorable octopus and thought, "I have no idea how to even make a circle, but I'm gonna figure this out!" And I did~ This was the result:

I think the mouth is terrible and ceased to embroider mouths for a long time after that. As soon as I shared this image on Facebook, a friend of mine requested one right away. Though, she asked for one without a mouth, which I was more than happy to provide. This is her Octopus Friend:

The photo quality is terrible, because I excitedly took a picture of it in bad lighting with my cell phone, rather than my fancy camera. But he looks just about the same as the other one.

These amis were made in January of 2009.