Crochet Chameleons

My latest crochet addiction has been crocheting chameleons.

I've made four in total. The green one was my first attempt, followed by the multi-coloured purple one, then finally the two smaller, mirror image chameleons (although not actually mirror image because I gave one of them the wrong coloured head spike, oops).

The pattern I used is by Ami Amour and is available on the Amigurumi Patterns.net website. I was admiring this pattern for a long time before I decided to buy it. The pattern is obviously super cute, but I was also intrigued by the construction of the pac-man like mouth. The pattern comes with easy to follow instructions, with plenty of photos to show you how to create the open mouth. It was a lot simpler than I was expecting, but it is difficult to create a ninety degree angle. The mouths of my lizards don't bend a great deal; it's the top lip that forms the angle instead.

While the pattern is easy enough to make, I did find it took a while to sew all the pieces together in a way that I was happy with. In particular the legs need to be sewn on strongly to give the chameleon enough support to stand. As you can probably tell from the pictures, this didn't always work out for me - these poor lizards are not very good at staying on their feet! 

I had a lot of fun making these and they make a nice addition to my amigurumi collection. The pink and mint green ones live on my computer screen now (although they are regularly being knocked off by my cat when she decides to stand in front of my screen - which is often at the moment. Grrr.)

For the first time in a long time I'm not sure what to crochet next... I need some crochet inspiration! Let me know if you've seen any cute patterns lately because I'd love to give something new a try :-)

Crochet Catch Up

Soooooo it's been a long time since I've written a blog post... an embarrassingly long time... 

While I haven't been blogging, I've definitely been crocheting. To get back into it I wanted to catch you up on all the crochet I've been doing over the past few months. 

And here they are!

The first amigurimi I made was the pink bear and white bunny. I had been admiring the Cutie Bears pattern by Ami Amore for a while and finally decided to buy it earlier this year. I really love the proportions of this bear with its oversized head! I will be making some more of these as they are very quick to make and provide instant cuteness. It's also a really easy pattern to modify. I made a bunny with the pattern by changing the ears. I made four identical bunnies for Easter this year (three to give away and one for meeee!).

The second of these projects I made were the kangaroos. I made these for my cousins' kids when I visited them during my holiday to England back in June. The pattern is Katy and Kelvin kangaroo which I bought here. The pattern includes a baby kangaroo that sits in the pouch but sadly I ran out of time to make them. I ended up making five of kangaroos, one of which I was rushing to finish in the airport before going home! 

The next project was the crochet burger or as my friend named him, Junkfood Tuesday. The cool thing about this ami is its seamlessness. No sewing required! I made this with a friend who was learning how to crochet. It was a tough project to start with but it was great for teaching the basics of making amigurimi as it included lots of different techniques. The pattern is available for free too :-)

Directly after making the burger I made the slightly creepy looking ghost creature. This ami is a Japanese tree spirit from the movie Princess Mononoke. This crochet version has more cute and less creepy than the ones in the movie though. I made this for a friend who came to my house and was so allergic to my cat that I felt I needed to make it up to her with crochet. He now lives underneath a mushroom shaped lamp at my friend's house where I'm sure he is very happy. The pattern is free from Amigurumei.

The next project I made was a cherry blossom garland for my friend's hens party. I made this in a day and was really happy with how it turned out. I used two different patterns to make the flowers. Sadly I didn't note them down, but they were both free patterns that I found online. One day I will make one of these garlands for myself; it just looked so pretty hanging on my calendar!

The last ami I made was the blue triceratops. I made this for my little brother's birthday. He's currently going through a Jurassic Park phase and I couldn't resist crocheting him a dinosaur. The triceratops was my favourite dinosaur as a kid so picking a dinosaur was an easy decision. (Does anyone else remember the Land Before Time movies with the baby triceratops? So cute!). The pattern is by Awkward Soul on Etsy.

And that's everything I have crocheted since my last post... almost! I do have another project to share once I have taken some nice pictures.

Hopefully this marks the end of my blogging drought. I'm planning to blog a lot more regularly with more crochet and also trying something different with a few book reviews. (I have recently become addicted to watching book reviews on YouTube and I'm inspired to give book reviewing a go!)

Fingers crossed that I will be back soon with another post!