I went to the library on my weekly indulgence and found Amigurumi Knits: patterns For 20 Cute Mini Knits by Hansi Singh. I've never indulged in the "cute knits" habit previously and I figured I'd just look over the patterns and take the book back the next day.
As I'm reading through the book I discovered that there were patterns for veggies, sea creatures, insects, and mythological animals. The thing that did me in was the adorable Kraken and Octopus patterns. When I showed the book to other people they liked the Jackalope, Hermit Crab and Nessie. The patterns all can use cheap acrylic yarn which I have in bucketloads since my grandmother died and left me her craft supplies. They also all call for the same size needles which makes them very easy to get into.
I thought I'd start by knitting the tomato. It looked simple and I figured I could take it with me to the theatre and toss it at people when I felt the need. Unfortunately, the tomato pattern has a major issue. At the top of the tomato are a set of leaves. The directions tell you to cast yarn on to the needles for the leaves and then bind off. No mention of anything else though. The pictures look like it's probably some sort of I-cord and I might give that a try. I was a little disappointed that there wasn't any mention of this on her web site either, although I didn't look very hard. So no stuffed tomato for me yet.
Instead I started by working on the starfish pattern. I didn't have the correct needle size, a size 5, so I tried to use the closest size I had, an 8. I knew this meant that I couldn't stuff the thing with the regular fiberfill, but I'm used to stuffing with scraps of fabric so I wasn't worried. I grabbed some of the most horrid yarn in the collection, a mottled orange-yellow-brown that I've always avoided, and got to work.
I completed the first starfish in about 4 hours of work. There was a little fiddling with the stitch count because of the different needle size, but on the whole it came out really well. I learned how to do short rows, which is new for me and I was delighted with them. I kept running up to people and going "Look, I made a little ramp!" This caused many non-knitting friends to back away slowly and look for the fire extinguisher, but I was amused. After I was done chortling at the short rows and cussing at the final tiny rounds, I stuffed my star fish with some nasty red poly fabric I'd been using for patterns and took a look at it.
I was staring at this thing I had made when my daughter came into the room and grabbed it. She looked it over and tossed it like a ninja star at the cat. I was immediately consumed with a need to make lots more of these little things and embroider ninja face masks and eyes onto them. So far I haven't found exactly the right pattern for the face but I've got a few other color schemes in mind and another candy-corn colored star on the needles, which are now the right size. It will be smaller and should be easier to sneak into office buildings to pelt my friends with.
MUA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!
Erm... yeah...ninja star fish
Singh, Hansi. Amigurumi Knits: Patterns For 20 Cute Mini Knits
Minneapolis, MN. Creative Publishing International, 2009
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