Meet my very first amigurumi – YoYo!

If you have never heard of amigurumi before, it is a Japanese art of making toys either by knitting or crocheting. The word amigurumi is made from two Japanese words – Ami ( meaning knitted or crocheted) and Kurumi ( meaning wrapping).

I’ve been wanting to try making amigurumi for a while now, but something always seemed to get in the way! Either I didn’t have time or supplies, or was not able to decide on which amigurumi to make. If you have ever searched the internet for amigurumi patterns, you know what I mean.

Last week, yet again I was looking at different amigurumi patterns and stumbled upon a Jigglypuff pattern from OllieHolly . It looked simple and relatively easy enough that I finally decided to give it a try.

However, I quickly realized that I didn’t have all the supplies on hand.  I didn’t have correct yarn or filling, or the crochet hook, or the safety eyes… but that day I was determined to start. I went through my yarn at home and picked two complementary colors – navy blue and teal. I had plenty of navy blue yarn, but was not sure if I had enough of teal to finish the body of the Jigglypuff. I was going to use a size H hook and a size 4 medium yarn, so I knew from the beginning that my amigurumi is going to be much bigger than the one with the supplies from the pattern. So I decided to use navy blue for the Jigglypuff’s pouf.

Along the way I made a few adjustments to the pattern, some to cover up the mistakes I made and some simply because I did not read the pattern correctly. But I was satisfied with the end result and so I thought why not share it with others in case they make the same mistakes?

Here are some of the mistakes and hence the changes that I made to the pattern –

1. I used bigger yarn, different colors and a bigger hook because that’s what I had on hand at the time.
2. I stuffed my Jigglypuff with old t-shirts. I knew that doing so will not allow me to wash it later, but I was determined to not give in to any excuses this time. I will not recommend it, especially if your children will be playing with it and it will need washing later.
3. Instead of safety eyes, I embroidered eyes. Again this was because I simply did not have safety eyes on hand. You can do the same if you plan to make amigurumi for babies or small children.
4. While crocheting the body of the Jigglypuff, I made a mistake at row 13, but realized the mistake when I was at row 18. I had to decrease the stitches a couple of times in row 18 to get back to 42 stitches. Thankfully, I was able to hide the mistake. How would you have fixed this mistake?

Here are pictures of me making my 1st amigurumi!

What do you think? Not bad for the first time right?

Ohh btw, in case you are wondering why the name YoYo, that’s what my son decided to name it. He loves his stuffed animals, and YoYo has become one of his favorites!