I Otterly Love You

One of my favorite YouTube videos is of a pair of sea otters floating around holding hands. It’s just sooo gosh darn cute. And yes, they actually do hold hands. It helps keep them from drifting apart while they’re floating around.

It seems that sea otters have worked their way into popular culture lately. A quick search on Etsy alone pulls up over 2,000 results.  One of my favorites is this super cute enamel “You’re My Significant Otter” pin sold by Tiny Bee Cards on Etsy:

So when I  asked to test an amigurumi pattern of a sea otter, I jumped at the chance! Tommy over at Snips And Stitches Shop on Etsy recently released his Emmet the Otter crochet pattern and it is just too cute. I love making amigurumi–they’re usually smaller projects (in comparison to my graphgans) and easy to do while on-the-go. My Emmet the Otter was worked up using my favorite–I Love This Yarn line from Hobby Lobby.

Picnic Basket

Last year, both of my brothers became fathers, making me an auntie! This time last year, I was still relatively new to crochet and whipped up some baby items for my new nieces. This year, I wanted to get a little creative with their 1st birthday gifts. I love making amigurumi and wanted to make them a few pieces of food to play with but didn’t quite know how I wanted to present the food to them. This was the birth of my Picnic Basket pattern!

I love the look of the basketweave stitch and decided that this is what I wanted to use to give the basket this great texture and detail. Using double strands of I Love This Yarn (worsted weight) in Brown, I created this picnic basket small enough for little curious hands.

The food patterns do not belong to me, but are linked below. I used all cotton yarn (I Love This Cotton) to work up the food so little curious mouths wouldn’t have acrylic fibers on their tongues. The picnic blanket is a piece of thick cotton fabric that I happened to find at my local fabric shop which I washed and sewed the folded edges.

Carrot by Kristi Tullis

Big Apple Amigurumi by Craft Passion

Cupcake Pincushion by Esshaych

My friend Kimberlie over at ShopKimberlie gave this pattern a whirl and added her hotdog and cheeseburger amigurumi pieces to her basket!

To grab your copy of my Picnic Basket pattern, you can head over to my Ravelry store, or use the direct link to my Picnic Basket pattern. With such a versatile basket pattern, I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

-Angela

Flowered Unicorn

Social media can be so awesome. I like being able to keep in touch with my friends and family that live so far away. It’s also really neat to be able to connect with people from my youth. An old friend of mine from my childhood that I grew up ice skating with had a daring little girl about a year ago, and I’ve enjoyed seeing all of her daughter’s awesome photos and funny little antics over the last year…thanks to social media. So, naturally, I was excited when my friend asked me to make a stuffed unicorn for her daughter.

The pattern is an easy work-up. The hair and tail are the pieces that take the most time. I went with my favorite yarn–I Love This Yarn by Hobby Lobby in Menthe, Mango, White, and Yellow. It’s such a soft yarn that’s both wonderful to work and snuggle with. The unicorn pattern is by the creator of One Dog Woof. The tail was made with 9 curls (3 of each color) by chaining 30+3 HDC in each chain.

My only alterations this time around included yarn eyes instead of safety eyes and a different color change. This was my first time using this color change and let me tell you, I love the result. As you can see, the color change here results in a nice solid line of color change, rather than the typical jagged edge.

The flower on the ear of the unicorn was the only request made by my friend other than the yarn eyes. I really think the flower finishes this unicorn’s look.

I recently hit my one year mark since learning how to crochet, and it was so fitting to make this unicorn because this is the same unicorn pattern I used one year ago for my very first crochet project. It’s a fun project that’s great for both beginners and those with some practice under their belt. Hope you love it Audrey!