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.
New Pattern! Butterfly (Four styles of Wings AND Butterfly Body)!
This Butterfly pattern comes with instructions for a realistic butterfly body, and FOUR individual styles of butterfly wings! These butterflies are ready to flutter into your home and sit patiently wherever you put them. This pattern features stunning wing styles ranging from extremely simple to textured and complex and clear step by step instruction with a lot of row-by-row photos. I have designated this pattern as advanced beginner, and I am so proud that it s extremely versatile and compatible with so many other patterns of mine! I’ve seen people make a butterfly octopus! A butterfly monster! And a butterfly dragon! Stunning!
© 2018 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™”.
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.
New pattern! Cloud Weather Sun Star pattern now available!
This pattern comes with instructions for a cloud, snow flakes, rain drops, lightning bolt, rainbow spirals, rainbow ribbons, a small star, a large star and a sun!
This pattern features at least 10 different possible combinations for adorable smaller (quickly made) items and clear step by step instruction with a lot of row-by-row photos.
I’ve designated this pattern as an advanced beginner level pattern. And so long as you keep any ribbon-pieces shorter than 7 inches and skip using safety eyes, this is the PERFECT addition to a baby gift!
© 2018 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: 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
Boo!
Made you look.
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™”.
Phoenixes Rise from the Yarn!
I’m proud to announce my new(ish) pattern!
You can find it here on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/listing/686928916/phoenix-firebird-crochet-amigurumi
Or here on Ravelry: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/phoenix-20
© 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™”.
Snitches made from Stitches
This pattern is available by Crafty Intentions and FREE! Make your own shiny snitch to catch and keep!
You can find it here: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/golden-snitch-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™”.
Crafty And Nerdy: Cross Stitch Quotes and a Mini-Fail
For a while, I cross stitched a new nerdy quote and framed it as a gift for my brother every year for Christmas. I worked hard on them. At some point I realized that I could single-handedly be responsible for filling his walls with decor, and decided I should probably lay off. But there were many years when that was my brother-craft.
Unfortunately, at least in part, I did it wrong. I recently learned that there's a way to prevent the ugly wrinkles that my projects were plagued with. He recently moved away across the country and I can confirm that the knowledge that I could FIX those wrinkles but can not because he's living so far away is definitely burning my brain.
Pictures are less than ideal because OF THE WRINKLES and also because I didn't take any photos of them myself, and instead asked my brother to take nice pictures and I'm not sure he knows how to do that.
And I also did a set of three quotes from Firefly!
So the way you fix the back is to back the cross stitch with some cardboard, and then stretch sew it into place!
You can find a good tutorial for that here: https://peacockandfig.com/2016/01/how-to-frame-cross-stitch-embroidery/
Eyeball Monster Pattern!
Crafty Intentions has an Eyeball Monster Pattern that features SO MANY different options for Large, small, tentacles, warts, smooth, wings, arms, feet etc, that you’ll never run out of figuring out new ways to make new original monsters! These are easy to whip up, use small amounts of yarn, and are just so fun to put ANYWHERE or give to ANYONE!
You can find it here: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/eyeball-monsters-2
Or Here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/651716893/eyeball-monster-amigurumi-crochet
© 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™”.
Yarn Shop Feature: The Speckled Sheep
The Speckled Sheep is one of my local yarn shops, and is one of my favorites. They offer a wide selection of yarn, roving, and locally made crafts. They just re-located to a beautiful Farmhouse location in Lancaster County, and it’s just a lovely experience. It is a family owned shop and they are talented and experienced with knitting and crochet work. In fact, this is one of those gold star shops that doesn’t look down on Crocheting at all!
10/10 Would go there again any time!
Yarn Shop Feature: Stars Hollow Yarns
On a road trip, I was able to visit Stars Hollow Yarns in Washington, CT! I somehow managed to convince the owner to open their doors before the official grand opening of the shop, and I am SO SO glad. It is a beautiful 2 story shop with wooden floors and wood beams, good lighting and the shop owner, Lisa Clark, is a gem. It specializes in both high quality fiber, and Gilmore Girl memorabilia including pins, prints, and more referencing the show. As a long time fan of Gilmore Girls, I really enjoyed that the setting of the town and shop are SO Gilmore Girls-esque, and the experience was lovely. I found so many treasures from yarn companies I haven’t seen very often - including Dragonfly Fiber, Alexandra’s crafts, and Mrs. Crosby Loves to Play.
It was a pricey trip, but well worth it. 10/10 would visit again.
Monster Pattern Revamped and More!
It has come to my attention that my formatting could be improved upon! I am committed to writing the clearest patterns possible. So in the coming year I will be re-formatting every single pattern I’ve already published, but I started with the Choose Your Own Adventure Monster pattern.
You can find it here: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/choose-your-own-adventure-monster
Or here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/606495674/monster-crochet-amigurumi-pattern?ref=shop_home_active_5&crt=1
© 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™”.
