One of the best things I’ve done for my hands was making sure that at night they take a proper break. Granted, I only really give them a break while I sleep, but it turns out that churning out all kinds of amigurumi while awake was contributing to tightness and clenching while I was sleeping - so they weren’t REALLY resting while I was sleeping. I would wake up and my hands would be MORE sore than they were when I finished crocheting all day.
I solved this by buying a set of wrist and hand braces for night time use. I bought THIS kind and it has served me very well. The important parts are that it stabilizes my wrist, while still being comfortable and NOT TOO TIGHT for night time use. And additionally, it has padding on the palm of the brace that does not allow me to clench my hand into a fist while I sleep. This forces my hand to stay in a relaxed position.
On top of that, I often use an athletic cream for sore muscles or a CBD cream on my hands, then I put my hands in those braces over night and by morning I always feel an improvement.
The bad news is that I, personally, have a hard time sleeping with those wrist braces on. But they’re good for me, so I grumble through it. I hope this helps!
Hand care!
I thought I would touch on hand care again because it is such an important issue for avid hookers. If you are crocheting regularly, please take breaks and stretch and rest your hand so that you don’t develop repetitive motion injuries.
And if you’re like me, and completely lose track of time when you’re crocheting and thus spend 3 hours hooking without a break and then pay for it later that night with pain, soreness and tenderness….
Here’s something you can do to help.
Treat yourself to an ergonomic crochet hook. It’s all the rage now. You can find different types of ergonomic hooks in all the big box craft stores for fairly cheap, but there are more varieties of hooks available out there now more than ever. My personal favorite that I think I’ll never ever stop using are Clover Soft Touch hooks. Their handle is actually quite small, but it fits my hand and something about it means I have far more endurance and far less pain when crocheting for long periods. The most expensive ergonomic hooks come from a company called Furls. I’ve personally found that their Odyssey line hooks (all I own from them) don’t fit well in my hand, but maybe it would be the perfect thing for yours! And the good news is their customer service is excellent, so if your hook breaks, you can contact them and they will replace it at no charge to you!
Supplies: Glass Gems
I use glass gems for weight and stability in some of my patterns. Glass won’t rust or corrode over time, so it is safe to put inside your yarn, but I would not recommend it inside of anything meant for a child under the age of three.
I often recommend adding glass gems to the feet of dragons, etc. This will give them a little bit of weight, and glass gems have a flat side, so if you point the flat side down it also gives the animal stability.
You can find glass gems at any big box craft store or online. I didn’t even know what they were called when I first started searching for them, but I’d seen them and played with them before. They can regularly be found in the bottom of wedding center pieces and you’ll often find them in the floral section of your craft store. You can use other types of weights (people have told me they’ve used metal nuts, pennies, etc to do the same thing), but I prefer the glass gems.
Yarn Review!: Lionbrand Landscapes
This is my other go-to yarn for a beautiful quality amigurumi, and I’m happy to share WHY.
Pro: GORGEOUS colors. Just LOOK AT MY DRAGON. LOOK AT IT. Now go look up “Boardwalk” colorway and buy some.
Con: It lies about its weight. It says it is Medium weight, it’s more on the bulky side. While I don’t think you have to size up your hook, you COULD and this yarn will definitely create a larger creature than your average worsted weight yarn would create.
Pro: One skein of Lionbrand Landscape is PERFECT for ONE octopus from my pattern.
Con: I can’t think of one.
Pro: It is single ply! Fantastic! Amazing! Silky! Beautiful!
Con: It is single ply. It might pull apart as you sew. Twist as you sew, and that won’t be an issue, but it can be an annoyance.
Pro: It’s awesome.
Seriously. It’s awesome.
Supplies: Ruler
One of the key supplies that I use constantly in the creation of my amigurumi and soft sculptures is a ruler. It can’t just be some generic ruler. THIS ISN’T PLAY TIME THIS IS SERIOUS.
I’ve tried just about every measurement stick you can find. I have cloth measuring tapes by themselves, measuring tapes in cutesy winder things, I have yard sticks and generic rulers, I even had an etsy seller make me a custom Leather bracelet that was stamped with ruler markings! If Only I could find that!
But my favorite by far is an antique wooden ruler that I found at a flea market. It is 6 inches long, but unfolds to be a full 2 feet long. On one side it has inches and the other it has centimeters. It is a Carpenter’s ruler and it looks like the photo below. It is THE BEST. And you should find one too — or whatever floats your boat.
Photo found here.
Yarn Review!: Red Heart Unforgettable
Red Heart Unforgettable yarn holds a special place in my heart as it is the yarn I used to make one of my first Dragons. This particular dragon went viral and is the reason I figured out what I want to be when I grow up.
Red Heart Unforgettable has some great qualities and some draw backs. Here’s the skinny.
Pro: It comes in absolutely stunning colors. I can’t recommend it enough for this reason. Colors are often most important to me as they capture what I want to convey - poor colors, means it’ll have a poor reception. Red Heart unforgettable always satisfies this way (I can’t recommend “Stained Glass” or “Gossamer” enough).
Con: It lies about its weight. It says it is a medium weight yarn, but it is not. It is a light weight yarn. Size down on your hook or double the yarn up. It is not terrible about yarn weight consistency, but it is not perfect this way. I have had more issues with other yarns, but this can be an issue for this one too sometimes, depending on the skein you’re using.
Pro: It is single ply! I love single ply! Something about that smooth single twist of yarn is sexy and silky and awesome. It’s my favorite and it’s what drew me to Red Heart Unforgettable in the first place.
Con: It is single ply! This means it can pull apart as you sew with it leaving you to cry hot tears of fury as you try to figure out how to thread your needle with 3 inches of yarn tail left to sew an entire dragon limb to your precious dragon and CURSE THE GODS FOR THEIR CRUELTY. Always remember to twist your yarn as you sew with it and you should be fine, but this is definitely an annoyance.
Pro: It’s cheap and easily available!
Con: It’s IMPOSSIBLE to frog. It felts itself as you crochet with it, so if you make a mistake and need to go back, it’s going to give you a real hard time. How to fix that? Don’t make a mistake.
All in all, I would still recommend it! I really like using it and I’m so glad to have it in nearly every color it’s available in.
Supplies: Wire
I frequently use wire in my patterns to help with stability, strength and poseability. It is important to me to be able to explain exactly how to assemble the soft sculptures in my patterns, so within my patterns there are often step by step written and photographic instructions for how to assemble your soft sculpture using wire. Figuring out the perfect wire to use has been an interesting journey that I am STILL ON.
As a fluke, I found that packages of paper-wrapped 18 gauge 18 inch faux floral wire works really well for what I want it to do. The crumpled paper wrapped around the wire offers a nice friction resistance against the yarn crochet work, so pieces that you crochet won’t shift as much once the wire is inside, because the wire isn’t just smooth. This particular wire that I recommend also happens to be fairly stiff for 18 gauge wire, and the paper-wrapped quality adds girth to the wire, so although 18 gauge is fairly small, the paper makes it much thicker.
The 18 gauge, 18 inch CLOTH wrapped wire is NOT created equally to the paper wrapped stuff. I’ve found that the cloth wrapped wire is far to malleable and won’t hold up the weight of a crocheted wing (for example) the same way that the paper wrapped wire does. Unfortunately, I also found out that there is no firmness descriptor on packages of wire meant for faux foliage. So it can definitely be a bit of a process to locate a perfect wire to use in your work. Keep in mind, you also DO NOT want the wire to rust.
I explain this because although I found the wire easy to locate in stores here in America (big box craft stores), for my overseas customers it was not so easy. Overseas customers have found wire more readily available at their local home improvement stores — Wire used for fencing or hangers works well, but you should always have a pliers on hand for trimming and shaping. You don’t want a wire that’s TOO stiff, because then you run the risk of not being able to shape it as exactly as you need.
So basically, go out there and find the goldilocks of wire. Good luck!
The Etsies!
I did something scary and exciting! I entered my Dragon pattern in the Etsies! The Etsy Design Awards!! This is the first competition that Etsy is hosting! I can’t wait to see what everyone puts out there for this! I can’t figure out whether I’m foolish for having a very real hope of being chosen as a finalist for this! Eee! Exciting!
#TheEtsies
Supplies: What's the skinny on Polyfil?
Out of all the supplies you use to make amigurumi, polyfil is one of the super important ones that we care least about. It goes on the inside of the amigurumi and gives your work shape and body.
I strongly prefer generic polyfil - the kind of polyfil that feels more like cotton gives my sensory issues the heebie jeebies. So I prefer the stuff that feels like acrylic clouds. Also, I told my daughter they’re called “Clouds” and she will often ask to play with my “clouds”.
There are more options and tricks for stuffing your amigurumi. You know all those yarn tails you get after weaving in your ends? If you save them, you can use them to stuff your next amigurumi!
Also, when you make an all black amigurumi - like a black unicorn, and you’d like to stuff it, it can be a little odd looking to stuff it with white polyfil as the white will peek through all of the holes of the crochet work. If you don’t like the look of the white peeking through, there are ways around it! You can take a nylon stocking, and fill THAT with polyfil as you stuff it inside the amigurumi. The nylon stocking will contain and mask the bright white and you won’t notice inside your work. Your second option would be to pick up some very cheap black yarn and use that to stuff your work. You can find cheap black (or any color) yarn at thrift stores and in the clearance section of your local big box craft stores. Stuffing amigurumi with yarn means that your amigurumi will be much heavier than if you stuffed it with polyfil, but you will not see the inner stuffing through your crochet work AT ALL.
I hope this helped!!
Dragon Update!!
There is a BRAND NEW UPDATE available to the Dragon pattern! IF you purchased the pattern on Ravelry, it should automatically be available for you to download. If you purchased it on Etsy, I sent you a manual update to your email address. If you did not receive that email update, please message me on Etsy and I will make sure you get your updated copy!
Enjoy!
© 2019 Megan Lapp, Crafty Intentions™. All rights reserved. This pattern is FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. The pattern (or parts of it) may not be reproduced, distributed or resold, translated, published, altered, shared or posted (for sale or free) over the internet or offline. You can sell items made from this pattern, provided they are handmade by yourself in a limited number and you give credit to the designer. Please add the following lines to your item description and any item you are selling: “This item is handmade by (your name) from a design and pattern by Megan Lapp, Crafty Intentions™”.
Supplies: What's the Skinny on Safety Eyes?
There are a lot of supplies that go into the creation of a high quality soft-sculpture created with crochet. I use yarn, wire, crochet hooks, darning needles, polyfil, duct tape, safety eyes, glass gems and more!
Out of all of these things, one of the most important that has a substantial impact on the apparent quality of my work is definitely the eyes. As such, I have 3 full organizers full of eyeballs. No joke.
I like to use classic black safety eyes a lot - I have a range of sizes from 6mm all the way up to 18mm. I like to make sure that my black safety eyes come with a white opaque washer. I’ve found that this particular color of washer is the exact type that fits most easily AND most securely over the ridged post of a black safety eye. These plastic washers are my favorite for extremely secure safety eyes, but don’t forget safety eyes are NOT recommended for toys intended for children under the age of 3.
If you want to get fancier with your safety eyes, as I often do, and you know that the item you’re making isn’t going to be played with by a very small child…. I STRONGLY recommend you check out Suncatcher Craft Eyes. Suncatcher craft eyes is a small woman-owned business. Every pair of eyes is hand painted. Her work is meticulous, high quality, and unique. I definitely recommend her Hologram, Double Glitter, and Galaxy lines. They are my favorite to use to give one extra dose of specialness to my work.
Griffin or Gryphon?
Whatever you call it, I wrote a new pattern for it!
You can find it here on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/listing/694045116/griffin-crochet-amigurumi-pattern
Or here on Ravelry: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/griffin-3
© 2019 Megan Lapp, Crafty Intentions™. All rights reserved. This pattern is FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. The pattern (or parts of it) may not be reproduced, distributed or resold, translated, published, altered, shared or posted (for sale or free) over the internet or offline. You can sell items made from this pattern, provided they are handmade by yourself in a limited number and you give credit to the designer. Please add the following lines to your item description and any item you are selling: “This item is handmade by (your name) from a design and pattern by Megan Lapp, Crafty Intentions™”.
Featured Pattern: Seahorse
Seahorse made by Me! Crafty Intentions
Pattern by Terry Finer.
Available Here: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/post-modern-post-stitch-seahorse
This pattern builds this seahorse in an ingenious 3-dimensional way so that you do not need stuffing. It is built in such a way that it fills itself out! It's amazing! I made a ton of them and it was tremendous fun. It was certainly a challenging pattern, I would say intermediate or above. But I would definitely recommend it!
Featured pattern: Koi Fish
This Rainbow Fish made by Me! Crafty Intentions.
Pattern by: Terry Finer
Pattern Link: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/whomsoevers-koi-fish
A few pieces and parts of this fish can be tricky, and it is definitely a large fish!! But the finished product is so satisfyingly gorgeous that I have to recommend the pattern.
Question: Fox pattern, Yes or No??
Fox pattern! Now, I didn't just wing this. I did write it down. But... Is it good enough to publish it? Would you want to make one like this? I'm undecided about whether or not it's worth actually typing up, testing, and publishing. Hmm...
