All about Amigurumi

Looking for Amigurumi inspiration? Me too, and then I started making my own little crocheted figures.

I’ve been looking at crocheted animals online for a long time. In Japanese crocheted animals are called amigurumi and it’s all eye candy to me.

Just take a look at these guys, found at Flickr, they’re adorable;

The Amigurumi Definition

According to wikipedia;

Amigurumi (編みぐるみ) is the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small, stuffed yarn creatures. The word is a portmanteau of the Japanese words ami, meaning crocheted or knitted, and nuigurumi, meaning stuffed doll.

In the west they are called amigurumi, which are the original phonetics of 編みぐるみ in Japanese language. Amigurumi vary in size and there are no restrictions about size or look.

While the art of amigurumi has been known in Japan for several decades, the craft first started appealing to the masses in other countries, especially in the West, in 2003.

Personally I would love to get a few of these books on amigurumi, but some of them are expensive with shipping to Sweden where I am (and I wouldn’t know which one to choose anyway) so I’m gonna enjoy pictures online for now.

If you feel like you would like to get started with a pattern / description of a cute amigurumi, there is Shannon’s English pattern shop, love her Miffy-look-alike. BTW, if you don’t know crochet at all you might want to check out the cool mag Crochet me.

Amigurumi inspiration

By clicking on the tag amigurumi at flickr.com I found Elisabeth Doherty’s crocheted animals which I just love. And of course the amigurumi gallery of Melissa of the great blog oh sew pretty, soon to be renamed oh my good sew crocheted pretty perhaps?

I think Myra’s little bunny is super cute (it’s pink).

Christina of Orrietta cat has made the cutest doll ever, not crocheted but sewn, for Loobylu’s month of softies. I love that little doll (self portrait of the artist) and keep coming back to look at her. I wanna make something like this too, some day.

If you simply type crochet at flickr.com you’ll get over 800 inspiring pictures, many of them softies.

Making my own bear

This weekend was three days with Sweden’s National Day 6th of June. We went to the mountain cabin and I took some pictures of birch-wood and fire. Indoors I showed Maria how to crochet. It was fun, and she loved it which is great since we’re gonna travel together this summer.

So now I am finally crocheting a little bear (and so did Maria once I showed her). Can’t wait to stuff and sew it together (picture will be posted as soon as this is done).

Update: Check out my own free handed amigurmi babies for further inspiration, all found under the tag iHanna’s Amigurmis.