I have been working on Easter projects and took a local workshop on making crochet Amigurmi creatures. The workshop was fun, but short on details about where to locate resources. So after tracking down some of my own I thought I would add a blog on the topic.
First, I have tried some of the free egg patterns on the Internet, but most of the ones I have located are for egg cozies not stuffed Easter Eggs. I located an egg pattern in, Amigurumi World by, ana Paula Rimoli, that has worked perfectly. The egg pattern has proved wonderful as a base pattern for a bunny and I hope to try a chick soon. I am also going to try some variegated eggs for fun.
I borrowed the book from the library to determine if it would be of use to me. Then I ordered it when I found a great online sale. Just a word to the wise, at one point there must have been a bad printing. The copy that arrived was missing six pattern pages. The pages were present, but blank. I returned it and the company is honoring the sale price and sending another copy. It is easy enough to check if purchasing in the store. If you order online, do check your copy when you receive it to make sure you did not get one of the bad copies. Since I was looking for the egg pattern, I flipped there first and sure enough, that pattern along with three others was missing. The pictures were present.
At the workshop, we discussed the need to use safety eyes. You will notice many of the books have plastic eyes in the pictures of the patterns. I tried satin stitching the eyes of my first bunny and he now looks more appropriate as a Halloween decoration. I suspect with practice and thread instead of yarn I could get better. However, I did want to try the plastic option. The woman who taught the workshop unfortunately did not know the name of the brand she used or what the actual name of the eyes were which made an online search more challenging.
For those of you who are looking for a starting point, I did locate both eyes and noses. I found 12 mm 6pcs Darice Solid Black Eyes at AC Moore and JoAnn Fabrics. Michaels is moving to a new store in our area so I was unable to determine if they carry them. JoAnn Fabrics also carried Darice Animal Noses 21 mm 4 pcs. JoAnn's carried a variety of eye sizes. I picked up several sizes to experiment with in future projects I have planned. At this moment, their prices were considerably cheaper than AC Moore. I like being able to purchase locally when I can so items are available when I run out. However, if people have suggestions of online or physical stores to visit for these items, please let me know. When I asked at a few stores they were not aware that people were searching for these products.
When I finally finish some worthy of pictures I'll post some of my own work.
Picture Credits:
