Free Amigurumi Pinterest Board

Happy Weekend Everyone!!!

I have been procrastinating on blogging about my previous ami. :p I don't know why. But I did find this really cute someecards and had to share with you guys. :)

If you don't know, I have a pinterest board just for FREE amigurumi patterns that I've found. :)

You can find it on my facebook page, Panda8ngel Creations, or click HERE.

I hope this will give you enough inspiration to crochet something this weekend. hehe

More Non-Bunny Free Spring / Easter Amigurumi Patterns (part 2)

Bunnies get all the glory, so I thought I would put the spotlight on some adorable Sheep and Chickens this time. :) Are you guys ready for Easter or Spring? It’s around the corner! :)

Sheep / lambs are not the first animals that I think of when it comes to Easter but they are definitely part of the tradition. :) So here are a few Free Sheep / Lamp Amigurumi Patterns for your sweetie. :)

From Caron Simply Soft, a very adorable Sheep. (link)

Here’s a very cute Squeezable Sheep by Tracey. (link)

Ewey the Sheep from Carrie would love to be in some child’s Easter basket. :) (link)

<3 <3 <3

Spring Squishies from a very talented designer and artist, A Morning Cup of Jo Creations. (link) Chicks, ducks, sheep, and bunnies galore!

<3 <3 <3 

Now for a Few Free Chicken Amigurumi Patterns! :)

Drops Designs have this really cute Easter Chicken in “Paris” for your enjoyment. :) (link)

Harugurumi has this Easiest Amigurumi Easter Chick all dressed up and ready to go hunt some eggs. :) (link)

And here are some Hatching Easter Chicks from Loops of Lavendar. :) (link) I just want to make a bunch and put them in eggs as a cute surprise. hehe

I hope you guys have fun with all these Free crochet Amigurumi patterns. :) I am planning another post with more bunnies. :) So stay tuned. :)

Some Non-Bunny Free Spring / Easter Amigurumi Patterns (part 1)

Here are some more Free Amigurumi Patterns for Spring or Easter! :)

Let's start with something small...Eggs!!!

From Little Yarn Friends, here are some Lil' Moustache Eggs. hehe I think they are adorable! (link)

From Petals to Picots, here are some Mini Easter Eggs. (link) Hmm...I wonder if they would fit into the larger plastic ones. hehe 

Tonna crochet a bunch of Easter Eggs and made them into a wreath. (Link) What a great idea! :)

And lastly, Repeat Crafter Me, made these really cute egg cozies. (link)  I really like how she did a rainbow of colors. I think they are just adorable! :)

<3 <3 <3

Now that you have your eggs, you need something to carry them in. :)

Here is a very cute crochet basket from Jam Made Studio. (link)

Enjoy! Easter Sunday is coming up soon!!!

Sending G Jr., the Jellyfish, to His New Home :)

I had made this Jellyfish Ami and was thinking about different cute ways I could send him to my friend, G. :) This is what I came up with. :)

First I went to Michael's Arts and Crafts to go buy me a take-out-box. I was looking for the frosted white one but they only had the solid white one or this clear one (I put the bag inside so you could see the box more clearly). They had a bunch of other cute colors but this is for a guy and I wanted the jellyfish to be the star. 

While walking around, I picked up these stickers and a panda notepad that was definitely not on my list. :p It was pretty affordable. The most expensive thing was the 3D stickers. The box and the panda notepad were just $1 each and I had a 20% off coupon. :)

Next, I took some blue tissue paper from my stash. This one is for winter with the snow flakes on it but because of what I did with it, it really didn't matter. :) I shredded the tissue paper and used it for "water" and for packing material by putting some around G Jr to make him comfortable.

G Jr is so darn cute!! in his little transport box!! But that's not the end...

I added an address label to the inside just in case something happened to the one on the outside. "From Amanda's Hands....To Geoffrey's Heart".

G Jr. looks so excited to be going on this trip to his new home. :)

I am including some snacks. My fav is Shrimp Chips but I haven't tasted them in a while because they are so bad. :) Looks like G Jr. couldn't wait to get his tentacles on them. I hope they last the trip. :)

I cut up a clear plastic bag to wrap around the outside to protect the 3D stickers. Then I taped up the opening and added my address label. The light blue part is for the postage.

Now, he's ready to go to his new home. :) If this works, I really want to try sending other items I craft through the mail, not in "proper" boxes. I've been reading posts of people sending Easter eggs and flip flops through the mail. I think that would be so much fun!!

UPDATE: Failed, the post office didn't allow me to send it as is. They made me put it into another box because they said that the wire would get caught in the machinery and that the box can easily come apart. ugh! Well, that did not work. I guess if I had wrapped the whole thing up in shrink wrap, they might have let me. Well, lesson learned.

Have a creative weekend! :)

How to: Progress Bar and Scroll to the Top Widgets

How to add a Progress Bar Widget:

It's interesting how you get to a place or an idea. I was looking at my friend, Rachel's post about my surprise St. Patty's Day gift. And one of her followers, Carla, commented on my cute 4 Leaf Clover feltie pin. So, I decided to check out her blog. She is a great cross stitcher and mom. Then, I noticed her right sidebar. I love her WIP, she put up pictures of the designs she is working on and a progress bar underneath.

Thus inspired, I went googling for "progress bar widgets for blogspot". The first one that peaked my interest is from Stacking Pennies. You can check out her tutorial here. It was easy to do but I didn't like how it turned out on my blog (see screen shot below). I had to do a lot of trial and error to figure out the coding.

Next site has a very promising post but it sadly did not work. So, finally I found something that worked well, Ask HTMiLy. :) It is a very easy to follow tutorial with highlighted parts of the html code so you can sort of understand each part. But I wanted to change some of the colors. So, then I googled "Html color codes" and came on this site. You click on a square of color on the "HTML color chart" and then put it into the "HTML color picker" and it will give you the numbers for the "R" "G" and "B" in the code (ex: rgb(254, 243, 210)).

Here are a few more sites for you guys to browse if you want something different: Needle Exchange's colorful bars (it requires you to get a host for your files which I didn't want to do) and Ravelry had quite a few links to different tutorials for blogs but I am not a member so I didn't look through it.

Check out my Work in Progress section on the right side bar. :) 

Do you see that black and white up arrow? It's up next.

Scroll to the Top Widget:

I was scrolling through my own blog and some of the posts were so long that I thought it would great to have a floating button that brought me all the way to the top. Googling again, I came across quite a few sites showing you how to add one. Here are a few that I had to go through: Way2Blogging but I didn't understand CSS & JQUERY, Bloggeranalytics and techtasks both use JQuery also so they were out. I might go back and lean more about how to use them later but I wanted something straight forward and easy right now. Sorry, I know moms are grimacing right now. hehe This led me to use My Blogger Tips' widget. The tutorial is very easy to follow and execute. While I was writing this post, it occurred to me to change the color of the widget so it might look different on my blog. :)

Have fun! Any questions, feel free to ask although I am definitely no expert.

Crochet Fortune Cookie Tutorial

I've looked around and couldn't find a good tutorial for a crochet fortune cookie so I decided to make one myself. :p

He's a lot smaller than the first one I made and I think this makes him that much cuter. :)

Here's how to make one of your own:

Step 1: Crochet a circle/round

Front/Right side of the round

Back/Wrong side of the round

 Pattern for the round (make 1)

Make a magic circle
(You want to medium long tail on this end too)

Row 1: into the circle 6 sc (6)

Row 2: 2 sc into each sc around (12)

Row 3: 2 sc into each sc around (24)

Row 4: 1 sc into each sc around (24)

Fasten off and leave a long tail.

You are going to crochet in the round. Do not join.

Click here for a video showing you how to crochet the round.

Step 2: Stitch the middle down

You will first fold it into the fortune cookie shape so you can see where you want to stitch. You can use this folding method to fold circles of felt and get felt fortune cookies too.

First fold the circle in half. Where you fasten off your yarn should be at one point in the half circle.

Then you push the middle up while pulling the ends down.

You have the fortune cookie shape. It might look a little weird if you don't push out the sides. Don't worry about that because you will all a little fiberfill in at the end. You want to stitch the center together so it will hold the curved shape.

To stitch the center pinch the points together and flip out the sides so you can see the inside center.

Then put a couple of stitches into the center with the tail from the magic circle.

This is the view from the right/front side. You can see that it holds the center together.

Step 3: Close up the outside

Tuck in the rest of the tail inside.

Now, line up the stitches and use the long tail from your last stitch of the circle and go under 1 stitch from each side. You would put the needle where you would put the crochet hook.

You would pull tight. I didn't in this picture so you can see that I am kinda stitching a figure 8 and not like a whip stitch.

You will go back through from the same side you came out of. Doing this will hide the yarn.

Stuff a little as you go to keep the shape.

I use the back of my crochet hook to help get the stuffing into the small spaces.

Step 4: Add the "fortune"

Stop when you get to the last 3 stitches.

Take a piece of ribbon and fold it in half. Then you will stitch around the ribbon with the yarn.

When you get to the end, take your needle and exit somewhere else in the fortune cookie.

Pull tight and cut off the excess yarn.

To use the "fortune" as a place to put the keychain or cell phone fob finding, use some thread and make some stitches into the actual ribbon the same way you did the yarn so it won't show through.

As you can see my finished fortune cookie is about 1.5 inches. i used a 3.25mm hook and Caron simply soft yarn.

Please let me know if anything is especially confusion. I tried to take many pictures.

Have fun and good luck! :)

Kiiroitori Amigurumi

So, my cousin, Vivian's birthday just passed. Since, we are getting together for a family dinner with her mom and younger brother from Taiwan, I thought I would make her a birthday present. She loves Kiiroitori and I have Amigurumi fever so I thought I would combine the two and make my own pattern. :) So, here is my try at making an Amigurumi Kiiroitori. 

For those who do not know this character, he is the little chicken friend of Rilakkuma bear from San-X.

Rilakkuma Bear lying next to Kiiroitori Chicken

Don't get the chick mixed up with this duck. It is very easy to do and I've done it before because there is a very cute store for babies. :p

My Inspiration

My Finished Kiiroitori Amigurumi

LOL...he kinda looks like he has a mustache but the big black nostrils is a signature of this character. I might have made them a little too big but this is the first time I made an amigurumi pattern from a picture.

So, here's my pattern:

It is written in US/American Crochet terms.

Step 1: Beak - make 1

(I would make the beak first so that you can position the eyes correctly.)

- I used felt because I didn't have any orange yarn but I am going to write instructions for both.

Felt Beak:

1. Cut out 3 half circles the same size out of orange felt.

2. Take the 3rd half circle and trim the it down to be slightly smaller than the top of the beak   

     (use the above pictures as your guide - sorry, I didn't take a picture of each step)

3. Cut out 2 small circles out of black felt for the nostrils. 

     (You could also make large french knots with embroidery thread)

4. Take one of your top beak half circles and stitch or glue on the nostrils

5. Use whatever stitch you feel comfortable with and stitch the two larger half circles for the top beak together but do not stitch along the flat side.

6. Stitch the bottom beak to only the bottom piece of the top beak but only along the flat side

7. stuff the top beak a little with fiberfill 

Crochet Beak: (I haven't made one so let me know if it's ok)

Top beak:

Make a magic circle

Round 1 - Ch 1, then 6 sc into circle (6)

Round 2 - 2 sc into each sc around (12)

Round 3 - *2 sc into first sc, 1 sc in next sc* - repeat * around (18)

Cut out and glue felt black dots to the top as nostrils

Fasten Off - leave tail for sewing onto the body

Bottom beak:

Round 1 - Ch 1, then 5 sc into circle (5)

Round 2 - 2 sc into first sc, 1 sc in next sc - repeat once and end with 1 more sc

Fasten Off - leave tail for sewing onto the body

Step 2 - Body - make 1

Make a magic circle

Round 1 - Ch 1, then 6 sc into circle (6)

Round 2 -2 sc into each sc around (12)
Round 3- 2 sc into first sc, 1sc in next sc, repeat around (18)
Round 4- 2 sc into first sc, 1sc in next 2 sc, repeat around (24)
Round 5- 2 sc into first sc, 1sc in next 3 sc, repeat around (30)
Round 6- 2 sc into first sc, 1sc in next 4 sc, repeat around (36)
Row 7-15- Sc in each sc around (36)
Round 16- sc2tog, sc in next 4 sc, repeat around (30)
Round 17- sc2tog, sc in next 3 sc, repeat around (24)

- Stuff a little to position the eyes - the amigurumi will be shaped a little different once stuffed 

- Place eyes (you might have to take out stuffing to put on the backs if you are using safety eyes) - I used 9mm safety eyes

- Stuff! I used Blended fiberfill but use whatever you want - cotton or wool or polyester

- Continue stuffing as you end each round
Round 18- sc2tog, sc in next 2 sc, repeat around (18)
Round 19- sc2tog, sc in next sc, repeat around (12)

Finish Stuffing
Round 20- sc2tog around (6) 

Fasten off- sew up the hole and weave in the end

Step 3 - Wings - make 2

Make a magic circle

Round 1 - Ch 1, then 5 sc into the circle (5)

Round 2 - 2 sc into each sc around (10)

Round 3-6 - 1 sc into each sc around (10)

Round 7 - *1 sc into first sc, then sc2tog*, repeat * around 5x (5)

Fasten Off - leave tail for sewing onto the body (Do not stuff)

Step 4 - Tail - make 1

Make a magic circle

Round 1 - Ch 1, then 4 sc into the circle (4)

Round 2 - *2 sc into first sc, 1 sc into the next sc*, repeat * around (6)

Round 3 - 1 sc into next 2 sc

Stuff it a little just to keep the triangular shape.

Fasten Off - leave tail for sewing onto the body

Step 5 - Hair - make 1
- Cut out a "Y" shape out of black felt
- Thread black thread (any kind) onto a needle
- Place into a stitch somewhere near by and bring up at the point where you want the hair to be
Note: do not always use the center of the magic circle from where you started crocheting your body because it might not be the center when you are looking at his face. (Mine is off to the side a little)
- Do 1-2 running stitches along the bottom of the "Y" to make sure that the thread is secure to the felt (you can also make a little knot at the bottom of the "Y"
- Bring the needle back down at the exact point you came up and come out where you went in
- Pull tightly until the bottom of the "Y" is hidden into the body (that is why you wanted the thread secure on the felt)
- make a knot with the ends of your thread, pull taunt, and cut off the ends (the knot should pull back into the body somewhat) 
**If you were confused by this, here is a video explaining where to place your needle. She is not showing you about adding the hair but she is explaining a way of hiding the knot.


Step 6 - Feet - make 2
- Cut out the feet from black felt and sew or hot glue it on. You could also embroider it on with black embroidery thread. The feet are just a "Y" shape but with 3 toes.

Lastly - Sew all appendages onto the body and enjoy. :)

He was a hit! All my cousins thought he was very cute. :)


If I make another one, then I will update this post with pics of each step. :)

**I'm sorry but I have to put this:**
This pattern was created for personal use only. Please do not sell the pattern or anything you make from the pattern. Please do not copy the pattern and post it elsewhere. It is ok to link back to this page and pattern. And please give me credit where credit is due. :) Thank you.