Sometimes I get carried away with things. Especially when it comes to hobbies. I’m one of those people who finds a new hobby
and completely throws themself into it at the expense of other important things
like housekeeping and eating and basic personal hygiene. A lot of these phases have come and gone,
(including rec league hockey, button making, needlepoint, origami, the buying of
bulk food then processing and freezing it, etc.) but other hobby obsessions
have lingered (festered?!) and continually absorb huge amounts of my time.
One of these things is crochet. Particularly, the making of amigurumi.
kawaii desu ne! |
For the uninitiated, amigurumi are crochet stuffed toys
which (as the Japanese nomenclature may imply), are anthropomorphic animals
with giant heads, typically worked in the round. Usually they are teensy-weensy, but this is
not a requirement. Now as someone who
sells her crochet things at the farmer’s market, it might seem completely
legitimate for me to make a lot of these toys.
But in reality, it is just unholy how much time I spend on these
things. Just to demonstrate, take for
instance the proliferation of the zombie bunnies:
Zombie bunnehs! |
moar zombie bunnehs! |
OMG why can't I stop?! |
Amigurumi have a certain appeal that other crochet projects
just don’t have. I think part of this
has to do with repetition. If for
example you’re working on a blanket, you repeat the pattern a thousand times
for 20 hours and blanket is done. The
zombie bunnies on the other hand, take only about 3 hours to make, and they are
customizable and different each time I make them. About halfway through I get to decide on a
face, and I’m always able to switch out colours at random intervals. It doesn’t matter that the yarn is the colour
of vomit if it’s on a zombie bunny! You
just don’t have that kind of freedom with something like an afghan.
All of this potential for customization gives so much
freedom to a craft that at times can be quite constraining. I think even more freedom comes from the
cartoonish nature of amigurumi, with their over-sized features. If you think about so-called “realistic”
looking crochet animals (which I would say are the Western school of toy making), you are restricted to certain dimensions, colour,
etc. With amigurumi it doesn’t matter if
the kitty is pink or yellow, because it’s an amigurumi!!!
meow. |
purr. |
Speaking of the kitties.
The above kitties are known as “Amineko” (a Japanese portmanteau for
amigurumi-neko: neko is cat). Amineko
are a bit of a phenomenon around the crochet world (especially on Ravelry,
where hundreds have made them, and there is even a book about them!), and are a
bit bigger than your typical amigurumi.
They take a bit longer as a result, I can usually make one in about 5-6
hours if I’m focused. But they yield such a nice result, even if
they do take quite a bit of stuffing.
So, if you crochet at all, consider testing out an amigurumi
pattern for fun. And if you don’t
crochet, and don’t have any friends who know or are willing to teach you, I’ve
found youtube videos to be a great help when it comes to nailing down the
basis. And if you aren’t on Ravelry (I
say why the hell not?), then EPL also has scads of books on basic crochet and
on amigurumi too.
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