Go beyond the granny square

My current Internet pastime is the Facebook game, Farm Town.  Every day as I look at my Farm Town avatar, I think to myself, “I could crochet that.”

Well, finally this week I gave it a try. I might do a second one since I learned a few things from the first.

She’s cute and has inspired me to do more amigurumi. They are fun and easy. Plus it’s easy to work on while watching TV unlike some crochet that I wind up frogging two or three times during prime time.

Ever since my little girl saw the McDonald’s Happy meal teenie Beanie Baby hamster Fluffball in the display at the restaurant, she has wanted one. Alas, we have yet to acquire one of these. The Beanie Babies are McDonald’s current Happy Meal toy - celebrating 30 years of the Happy Meal. So there are 30 Beanie Babies in the set. I have some family on the lookout for the hamster so hopefully we can snag at least one.

Last night I decided to whip up a small hamster amigurumi. I didn’t have a pattern and just fumbled my way through it. Think I only frogged some stitches twice. I couldn’t find the solid black safety eyes so I had to use the ones with the clear back.

The little one really like it, and it gave me a chance to try doing a tighter single crochet especially when decreasing stitches.

My daughter has become a big fan of Scooby Doo and since I can’t seem to win the Scooby Doo dog out of the claw machine, I plan to crochet one.  This could be quite challenging to make an amigurumi great dane that will look like Scooby.

What I will probably do is find an amigurumi dog pattern that I like and change it to up a little bit. After looking through a few dog patterns, I think I have an idea on how to create a Scooby Doo in crochet.

Here’s a free dog pattern that I like even if it isn’t exactly what I’m looking for. There is also a website, GreyhoundCrafts.com that has a pattern that could be used. Amigurumi are usually fairly fast to crochet so I’m hoping to start and finish this in one day.

My daughter requested I make her a red lion. She helped or at least she tried by cutting up some red yarn to make the legs. It made a mess but she had fun and gave me some time to work on her amigurumi.

I wasn’t pleased with my first lion as his mane just didn’t seem right, so I started over. I did finish it enough for my little girl to comment that she wanted a baby lion. So I set out to make a smaller one. When I was finished, I thought it turned out pretty good. It was still too big by my daughter’s standards to be a baby lion. She’s into Littlest Pet Shop and Puppy in my Pocket, so she likes small toys.

So I made a smaller lion and hoped that it would be small enough. And it was. So she has a mama and baby lion although the mama lion was supposed to be the baby one.

My kid to watch Oswald on Noggin. I have to admit that my husband and I also enjoy watching Oswald. While surfing the Craftster forum, I found that someone had made an Oswald. It turned out so cute that I knew my little girl would love one. She didn’t post a pattern but I knew if I could find an octopus pattern that I could wing the rest of Oswald -mainly his cute bowler hat.

Lion Brand has a free octopus pattern that I used for the body and modified the tentacles just slightly. I closed together the tentacles. The bowler hat was the most difficult part but finally got it right after having to stuff lightly and mush into shape.

My goal is to make all the characters. My weinnie (Oswald’s dog shaped like a hot dog) didn’t turn out as well so I need to re-do her. Then I’ll work on the rest of the crew.

It’s very rewarding to be able to crochet some of my little girl’ favorite characters especially since they aren’t readily available in stores.

As part of the Harry Potter Holiday swap, I made this cute little owl for my partner since she had several owl related items on her wish list. The challenge was to find an owl pattern that could resemble Hedwig - the snowy owl that belongs to Harry Potter.

I found a cute free owl pattern. The pattern was first published in 1981, so therefore seemed a little dated. I improvised the owl’s feet to be a little more modern. That was the only change I made to it.

I chose the pattern mainly because it was small and for the shape of the owl. I tied a gold ribbon at the top so that the owl could be hanged on a Christmas tree. After all, it is a holiday swap. Overall I was pleased at how it turned out. My only problem was getting the wings straight. It was impossible and after a few attempts I just gave up. We’ll just chalk it up to a little extra character for the owl.

He was pretty fast to make, too. I just used an off white yarn, some safety eyes, and a small amount of brown yarn for his beak and feet. So, if you need a fast crochet gift, this one can be done in under an hour.

This weekend my three-year-old found my first amigurumi I attempted. It’s a pink pig that is in the masthead. It’s not the greatest looking pig but I couldn’t frog it after frogging several previous attempts.

So she claimed it as her own. She is into family with her stuffed animals. There’s always a mommy and baby. About half the time there is a daddy. So naturally she kept asking where the baby pig was. I told her that I would make one soon for her. Well, she kept asking about the baby pig, so I whipped one up sooner than later.

I added the eyes, ears, nose, and feet before stuffing the pig. That made it a lot easier. It took me less than 30 minutes to complete this little guy. Not bad at all. Basically I started with a ring of 6 single crochets and increased in rounds until I have about 25. Then I just worked a few rounds for the body and then decreased the end.

It motivates me to do more when my three-year-old totes around my creations with her everywhere. Maybe I’ll whip up a few more baby pigs just for fun.

After finding a cute pattern for The Golden Snitch from Harry Potter, I knew I wanted to make one for the Harry Potter swap I’m currently in. My idea was to make it for my partner’s cat. So, how do I turn a normal amigurumi pattern into a cat toy? It’s very simple.

For this, I added a bell in the middle and left out the fiberfill figuring that the cat would just pull it out anyway. Plus the bell is big enough to keep the shape of the ball.

Another idea I had is to add some catnip to it as that will surely pique a cat’s interest.

From my own cat, I have learned that if it is moving, then it’s interesting. So, I plan to make some i-cord for chain and attach it to the snitch. I’m going to transform a chopstick into a wand and attach the i-cord to it also. Voila! Now the snitch can fly and the cat will definitely be interested in checking it out. If all else fails to get a cat interested in a toy, always show some interest in it and then they will be all over it.

Small amigurumi toys are perfect cat toys because of size. Add some bells and some catnip to create something very playful and fun.

After deciding that the Lion Brand amigurumi elephant wasn’t what I needed to make for my sister-in-law, I just took the general idea and modified it for what I wanted. The first one I did was OK but then it was claimed by my daughter.

He was a little top heavy with the trunk and all. I tried to make the head bigger than the body but it didn’t work that well. On my second one I stuffed with beans instead of fluff to give it more weight in the back. I also made it smaller.

He’s a cutie and I think my sister-in-law will like him. His scarf is done in Alabama Crimson Tide colors since she is a huge fan.

For the body, I started with the back and basically worked single crochet rounds until I had around 30. Then I decreased the stitches for a few rounds to create the neck and then added them back. The trunk was started when I again decreased around 10 single crochet in a round.

The feet were basically six single crochet in a round for three rounds. The ears were three or four rounds of single crochet until the size was 24. The appendages were almost exactly from the Lion Brand free pattern, just modified to be smaller to fit my elephant.

Overall it didn’t take that long to crochet. It took longer to finish it than actually crocheting. Still I did two of these in one weekend, so not bad at all.

One of my many projects I have planned to attempt is an amigurumi elephant. There is a cute, free pattern at Lion Brand that I’m going to use. You have to register at the Lion Brand website to download patterns. Registration is free.

My sister-in-law is a huge Alabama Crimson Tide fan, so I’m going to make her one for her birthday with either an A on it or some other Crimson Tide embellishment.

This will be my second amigurumi pattern to try from Lion Brand. The pig I did a few weeks ago was my first, and it turned out pretty well. I have a few weeks until her birthday, so maybe the elephant will go as smoothly as the pig.