Henry’s Octopus Cousin Amigurumi

A few month’s back, I published a free crochet pattern called Henry the Hexapus (must scroll down aft following link).  Since then I’ve made several improvements on the design and created Henry’s Cousin- an Octopus Amigurumi.

The pattern is available (for FREE) at my ravelry store.  Please enjoy.

The pattern is written in US crochet terminology and is fully customizable to any size, any yarn and any numbers of legs you want your creature to have.

A 6-legged hexapus version

A view from the bottom side- a convenient hole

In My Dreams Crocodiles are Made of Rainbows

Is it a scarf or is it a croc’s tail?

Even though I live on the equator, I still often need to wear a scarf.  The air conditioning on bus, trains and in movie theatres is INTENSE.  I try to carry a scarf with me to use when needed.  The “croc-a-tail” scarf fits easily into my bag and is cuddly warm enough to keep my neck cozy.

I’ve made the pattern available at my ravelry store here.  It includes two variations.

Skoopy Hat

This hat is by far my most popular design.  I have made dozens, sold several and had handfuls stolen/borrowed indefinitely.  I’ve made them in every imaginable fiber and in various sizes to accommodate different size heads and hair.

David Z wearing his Skoopy Hat in Homespun

Styrofoam Head Model

Is that a zombie?

I finally have written and test-crocheted my pattern and now it is available at my Ravelry site here.

Sara the Capybara

A few years ago, my long-time/ long distance BFF, Sara came to visit me in Macau.  Since Macau is tiny and Sara traveled half-way around the world, we decided to also visit Japan during her stay.

Osaka Aquarium’s Capybara

During our trip (which I will blog about someday), we visited the Osaka Aquarium, which houses all sort of sea life and randomly several capybaras. The capybara is a South American giant (and adorable) rodent.

Even the sign is cute

In her comment on a recent blog post about my crocheted amigurumi animals, Sara challenged me (informally) to create a crochet capybara with a bumhole.

CHALLENGE

ACCEPTED!

I present Sara, the Capybara

The business end

I took copious notes as I made her and plan to publish the pattern on Ravelry soon.

Merry Monkeys

I posted earlier that I was doing a crochet/ amigurumi Monkeyful Christmas Countdown.  I had set my goal at 10 monkeys by Christmas.  As it turns out, I only needed to make eight.  (One for each of my 6 students, one for Tracey and one for Helen).

“Skinny Monkey” number 3 of 8

The first four monkeys went really quickly and I had completed them with weeks to spare.  Then wrist and finger pain caused me to pause for a few days.

Rainbow Monkey

Monkeys 5 and 6 happened eventually and then I paused again as my friends Marshall and Lionel came to visit.

Fuzzy Head (Tiger) Monkey

Greeny

This resulted in me having only THREE DAYS to crochet my last two monkeys.  I did make it, but I had to stay up until 3am on the night of the 23rd to finish the last monkey for my students.

Sunrise Monkey- possibly my most favorite monkey ever!

The Finale Monkey- Watermelon

My students and their monkeys

Two New Designs

I’ve recently started publishing my crochet and knit patterns on Ravelry.com.  And I have two new patterns available.

Feeling Lucky?

I created this pattern in order to make a pair of Fuzzy Dice for my friend, Gemma.  She has a new apartment and has decorated it with lots of hot pink!  When I visited her for a house-warming party, I felt inspired to knit her some retro dice.

Fuzzy Dice for Gemma

She loved them, so I made another pair for a my co-worker for our Secret Santa party.

Smooth as Dice for Hock Hoe

You can find both patterns (for free!) at my Ravelry store here.

Henry the Hexapus

While visiting a friend in NYC earlier this year, she showed me a cute amigurumi octopus named Chutney.  I tried, unsuccessfully to steal him from her by hiding him in my luggage.  When I returned to Singapore, I decided to make my own cute octopus using some scrap yarn that my friend had given me.  My octopus had similar construction to hers except I added my signature “backdoor bumhole” to his underside.  AND…

As I was using scrap yarn, as luck would have it—I ran out of yarn while making the legs and now my octopus is a HEXAPUS.

The first of many Henries I made

I googled the word hexapus and found that there really is one in Blackpool, England.

The Real Henry

Here is a link to the Telegraph article about the original Henry.

Henry’s pattern is available (free) here.

Happy Crafting in the New Year!

A Monkeyful Christmas Countdown

I have set a goal for myself to crochet at least ten Backdoor Monkeys for various people as Christmas presents.  Two down, eight to go…

Moonlight Monkey

Sporty Monkey

Sporty’s Backdoor

 

I’m a Designer!!

So I crochet and knit- A LOT!  I often design my own amigurumi (stuffed animal) critters.  I am usually pretty bad about documenting my process.  But I have finally managed to photograph the process and write down my pattern for one of my favorite designs. It’s a cute little monkey with a secret backdoor opening.

Read more about my design process here. (Lots of fun photos)

Visit my pattern site here. (It requires signing into ravelry.com)

K-Hole

From Wikipedia: “At sufficiently high doses of the drug ketamine (often .25 grams (0.0088 oz) – .5 grams (0.018 oz) or more), it is common to experience a “K-hole“. This is a slang term for a subjective state of dissociation from the body which may mimic the phenomenology of schizophrenia,^[1] out of body experiences or near death experiences,^[2] and is often accompanied by feelings of extreme derealization, depersonalization and disorientation, as well as temporary memory loss and vivid hallucinations.”

 

I, personally, define K-hole as: “At sufficiently high doses of craft Knitting, it is common to experience a subjective state of dissociation which is often accompanied by feelings of euphoria, loss of time, insomnia.”  Clear indicators that you have fallen into a k-hole: cramping in hands or fingers, realization that you have “watched” 4 episodes of Prison Break and didn’t notice that the main character is covered in tattoos, and . . . the most common tell-tale symptom:

WONDERFUL THINGS MADE OF YARN

Stripey Socks for Me

 

Binary Hat for Sharon (says Sharon in binary!!)

Sock Monkey Sweater Vest for Me (says sock monkey in binary)

Umbilical Hat for Me- my first knit hat

La Femme Cactus part Deux (says la femme cactus in binary as well)

That’s all I will show you here.  (Can’t believe there’s still more? What can I say? I am a knitting fiend.) See more photos of knit stuff here.

 

I have recently updated my ravelry page with complete STASH info and updated PROJECTS.

Meet Tourosol!

The Bull

Tourosol- A Bull with a Sunflower

Recently, a lady commissioned me to crochet a bull holding a sunflower for her upcoming wedding anniversary.  The bull is based on a character in her husband’s favorite childhood cartoon.  She couldn’t tell me the name of the show or the character, but gave me the photo below.  She wanted the bull to hold a sunflower (her favorite flower).

 

No name, only photo . . . Let the creativity begin.

With nothing else to go on, I selected some yarn and drew up a sketch.  She liked the sketch and we agreed on a price and deadline.

 

My Sketch of Tourosol

It took me about a week to crochet him up and assemble him.  Most of the design was pretty easy, however, I did struggle with the clogs and have to remake them a few times before they turned out right.  I named him “Tourosol” which combines the Portuguese words for bull and sunflower.  I used a red chinese lantern as the flowerpot because their anniversary falls just a few days after Lunar New Year.

 

Tourosol profile

The Rest

Life in Macau is going well.  New Year festivities are in full swing.  (Expect a post in a few days with lots of decoration and firework photos.)  I am crafting up a storm.  Other than the bull, I have made an elephant, some hats and I just finished my first KNIT scarf.

 

The elephant (also with New Year lantern)

Slouch Hat

Shell hat for Jessica

My first knit project is complete!

I am feeling really inspired to write, so keep an eye out  for most posts soon.  There is much to show and tell.