Blogiversary announcement

Today is my second blogiversary and I have a big change at ReveDreams.com to announce. Before that, however, I would like to introduce your guest host. Together at last!

stumpy monsters together

This monster was supposed to have been completed for Halloween… of 2011. However, I made a monster and when I brushed her, she got all stretched and floppy, her toes like the flippers of a walrus. That version was a dark orange. This version was of yarn much more similar to Stumpy (Stumpy is Full O’ Sheep [Stitch Nation for Red Heart]; this is Sheep(ish) by Vickie Howell [Stitch.Rock.Love. for Caron]) and brushed up nicely. Like the Hug Monster did, she will spend some time anonymous, until her name is revealed to me.

stumpy blue monster

Anonymous Light Blue Monster would like to announce the opening of the ReveDreams.com store! Several patterns you’ve seen the results of are there. We’ll survey them in tomorrow’s regular post. I aim to add more patterns steadily through the year, as well as continuing to tweak the look of the store pages.

More Japanese ami secrets

In my kappa post I talked about the photos in the amigurumi books I bought from Japan. This time I want to address the techniques used. The books I got all worked in proper rounds, not in a spiral, which is something I’ve never gotten the hang of but tried hard on with my kappa. He has a visible seam down his back, but it’s largely covered by his shell.

The rounds begin with what I would call the double magic ring, something I didn’t hear about until over a year and a half into my crochet life, despite making amigurumi from the earliest point I was able. This is the only starting method given in any of the three books. The double ring is just like the magic ring you might already be acquainted with, except you wind the yarn twice to start instead of once. When tightened, it has enough friction to hold without weaving in the end at all. Tightening has to be done carefully, though: pull the cut end of the yarn and see which loop of the ring tightens. Stop pulling as soon as you determine that, grab that loop, and use it to tighten the other loop. Finish the job by pulling on the end of the yarn. The books say to put the cut end through the second loop before tightening it, which would lock it in place, but even without that I have never had a double ring work open on me later.

Here’s a video!

My second ever, and the reason this post is so long after the kappa post.

To close, the recommendation is a running stitch through the front loops of the last round. I was astonished to see how well this worked — there were fifteen stitches in the final round of the kappa, and he closed up neat as a pin. There is a certain ripple to his bottom end from the opening being gathered substantially, but even with that he looks nicer than a lot of my other amis which were closed after decreasing to only six or seven stitches.

kappa bottom

Now, I went to look at June Gilbank’s blog post on amigurumi closure comparisons, because she recommends a different method: drawstring, yes, but after whipstitching outward through the front loop of each stitch in the final round. I decided to do my own comparison, on pieces with larger and smaller final rounds.

Here’s the result. The contrasting stitch is just to secure the contrasting yarn for the drawstring, so you can see how it was stitched. The running stitch (Japanese books) is on the left, and the outward whipstitch (perfect finish) is on the right. In the first picture I left some of the stitching loose so you can see how it goes. The second picture is tightened but not finished off, and the third is finished off.

Large opening (18 stitches in final round):

18 stitches - open 18 stitches - drawn tight 18 stitches - finished off

Small opening (7 stitches in final round):

7 stitches - open 7 stitches - drawn tight 7 stitches - finished off

As you can see, I couldn’t even get the 18-stitch opening completely closed with the whipstitch technique – it has more friction due to the looped shape. Whipstitching lets the final round blend in better in the 7-stitch opening, but the score is close. I’m a running stitch convert – though I’ll admit part of the reason is that I’ve had trouble remembering which direction to whipstitch for the perfect finish!

More gifties

My sister requested a crochet Pi for her office, and since the very few versions I found online (for pay or free) did not excite me, I decided to make my own.

two pis

This is big little pi and little big Pi. I haven’t totally worked out the pattern for big little pi, but here’s the other.

Little Big Pi

Top bar:
1. Sc 6 in magic ring.
2. 2sc around (12).
3-5. Sc around (3 rnds).
6. Ch 3, sk 3 sts, sc 9.
7-8. Ch 3, sk prev chs, sc 9.
9. Sc into each ch and sc of prev rnd, leaving a lp of each ch exposed to sc into later (12).
10-14. Sc around (5 rnds).
15. Sc 2, ch 3, sk 3 sts, sc 7.
16-17. Sc 2, ch 3, sk prev chs, sc 7.
18-20. Rep rnds 9-11.
21. Dec around (6).
Cut, leaving a tail for finishing, and pull end through last stitch, but leave open for now.

Legs:
These are crocheted directly onto the top bar, beginning in rounds 6 and 15 of the top bar. Be warned that it is very easy to add a stitch in rounds 1 and 2 – when you are done with round 1, count to 12 back the way you came to make sure you’re stitching into the correct loops.
1. Place sl kn on hk and sl st to join to middle skipped sc in rnd 6 or 15. Sc in same st and next sc (2), in ends of rows once before, between, and after the chs (3, 5 so far), in each rem lp of the chs of rnd 8 or 17 (3, 8 so far), in ends of rows as before (3, 11 so far), and in rem skipped sc of rnd 6/15 (12).
2-14. Sc around (13 rnds; sk sl st of rnd 1!).
15. Dec around (6).
Stuff and FO. After both legs are done, stuff and FO top bar.