amigurumi Archives - Page 3 of 19

Evolution of a hippo

You saw the first draft of the snouty hippo some 17 months ago (Hi, FYDP), and it saw a few versions in between. I thought I’d show you them.

Top to bottom, let me introduce the versions.

Draft 1 (red/orange/gray variegated): freehanded, intended to be a thumbnail hippo!

Draft 2 (purple variegated): snout adjusted, head shortened and body increases moved to chest instead of evenly spaced. Granted, this yarn’s a little thicker, but look how my stitching got larger over the months!

Draft 3 (orange): head shortened again, diameter of body decreased.

Draft 4 (red variegated): one more little head adjustment, time to make the body not a tin can, feet needed shrinking down.

Draft 5 (screaming yellow meemie): yet one more head adjustment, minor body adjustment, learning how to sew the legs on in appropriate locations. Very similar to the final version – I just made another edit to the body.

Here’s a better pair of photos to see the changing shapes.

Previous drafts to the Snouty Hippo. See the evolution and get the final pattern at revedreams.com/.

Rumor has it there are amigurumi designers who sketch their creatures, stitch them up, make a second copy for in-progress photos, type the pattern and send it off for testing. I am not such a designer. Most of my patterns work like this one, with quite a bit of distance between the initial draft and the final version. Worth the effort? You tell me!

Snouty Hippo

It’s National Hippo Day! [1] To celebrate, I have a new hippo pattern in the store:

Snouty Hippo Pattern

I never thought that snouty hippos would be such nosy hippos! Look at this:

Snouty Hippos want to know if they can have some. Get the pattern at revedreams.com/shop/.

What are you eating? Can we have some?

Snouty Hippos are exceedingly helpful. Get the pattern at revedreams.com/shop/.

Ooh ooh! We’re good at crosswords! Does that say “Hi-po”?

Snouty Hippos meet their match in dachshunds. Get patterns for both at revedreams.com/shop/.

Who are you? [Dachshunds, nosy in a different way.]

Snouty Hippos are worse than housecats with the laptop. Get the pattern at revedreams.com/shop/.

Hey, is that us on the computer? Click there!

Snouty Hippos try for cake. Get the pattern at revedreams.com/shop/.

Can you reach? I’m trying, I’m trying!

Information about stitching and materials is in the shop.

[1] I learned long after planning this all out that this National Hippo Day originates with the game Second Life. National Hippo Appreciation Day, which has a Facebook page, is July 24. Perhaps we’ll speak about hippos again then.

Wrong way round?

Apparently, I install the washers on my safety eyes upside-down. The bump is supposed to face away from the eye, according to every site where I found instructions. I’m going to guess they’re easier to put on that way. The little spikes I stab my fingers with are supposed to grip the fabric and stabilize the eye.

I have no intention of changing, though. I place them bump down for a reason: on the eye sizes I use, the washers are always far larger than the eyes. My amigurumi are small, and there’s generally a strong curve around the eye. Putting the washers on “correctly” can create ridges around the eye; putting them on bump down gives a bit of clearance above the washer.

I haven’t been able to find any information about the security of the washers in either orientation, and I’m not equipped to measure it myself, but they certainly don’t come off easily even when upside-down.

This is the sort of thing I research on a Sunday night.