Honeybee*Hill

We gave Sullivan a camera. It’s a vTech Kidzoom brand digital camera. Normally I’m opposed to giant plastic colorful toys that make noises, but Sul has been obsessed with taking photos with my camera — which is definitely not a toy. The picture quality on the vTech is terrible and it’s really not very good at all, but Sul can drop it over and over again and it still works and that’s what really counts!

Aaron set up a flickr page for Sullivan — which I think is really cool. It’s marked private, but if you want to see his photos, leave me a comment with your flickr name and I’ll add you to his friends.

He’s taking photos of this:

Which isn’t his. I made it for a swap, but Sullivan loves it so much I will have to make him one just like it.

The pattern is from this book which I got from mwendas.etsy.com (when I ordered my fancy hooks). I really like the book — though I hesitate to call it that. It’s more like a glorified brochure. There are 48 pages and it’s 6″ x 8″. Fridah discloses all of this in her shop — which I really like and respect. Some times I am disappointed by how small Japanese craft books are when sellers don’t post this info. But smallness aside, there are actually a lot of really super cute patterns in this book. And they’re all pretty easy.

It must be that I’m a visual person, because I much prefer to crochet from charts rather than read out the abbreviations. I think this book is really good for someone who is new to either amigurumi or reading a chart. The patterns all increase and decrease evenly — which is another feature of the Japanese patterns that I really love. Most patterns work in multiples of 6 I’ve noticed.

One thing that is really helpful when you’re reading an amigurumi pattern in a Japanese book is to have a little cheat sheet of body parts commonly used — like head, ear, eye, etc. My Little Mochi has such an aid available here. It also helps if you have a husband who can read some Japanese!

Amigurumi are so inexpensive to make! I have already made three toys of the two balls of yarn (the brown and white) and I have enough left still for another toy or two. The beagle pattern was fun but I was surprised how small it is. The legs were harder for me because I had to use such a small hook.

I’m sad that I have to send him off to a new home and so is Pippi bunny. Sul too. When I showed him the dog he said, “COOL!!!! Dog!” and ran to grab his camera. Ah, my kinda kid. I hope my swap partner loves him!