Amigurumi is the popular new Japanese crochet technique for making cloth toys--and Super Cute shows needlecrafters how to master it! Using the Japanese double ring technique, readers learn how to create 25 quirky and cuddly tiny toy animals out of crochet yarn. The only rules amigurumi crafters must follow is to make their creations small--roughly four to six inches long--and, of course, cute. Super Cute shows basic techniques for assembling amigurumi animals with instructive text, diagrams, and step-by-step color photos. The book's 25 imaginative animal designs
As promised, most of these amigurumi animals are really adorable. Each pattern includes textual instructions along with the spiral diagrams. The instructions are pretty easy to follow, and there's advice about the sort of wool to get and the size of hook to use. Irritatingly, there isn't anything on how much yarn each critter uses, but probably not more than a ball, definitely not more than two balls.
It has a section on the stitches involved, with pretty good diagrams, and a section on how to design your own critters. Looking forward to making a couple of these.
I picked up this book because of the variety of different amigurumi animals in it. I'm glad I got it on sale since the directions in them are somewhat difficult to follow as they are written. I'm fairly new (as in crocheting animals for less than 6 months), and when I follow the written directions or the charts it is confusing since the numbers just don't add up right sometimes.
I have found that with a little creativity and looking at the diagrams those sticky parts get a lot easier. So far I've only had the time to work through one of the patterns, the "budgie", and it has turned out really, really cute. Granted I had to fake the directions for the wings and lower half of the body, but it looks nearly like the picture!
If you are a beginner and pick up this book, don't get discouraged. With just a little experience with other patterns it is possible to use a few tricks to get it to come out right. And, there are a few tricks you'll pick up along the way, such as skipping a stitch instead of decreasing to make an area smaller.
There are several cute animals here, but I wouldn't call many of them super-cute. As with other amigurumi, some have very large heads with little or no body (the so-called Cute Kitten). I liked the gray rat, the Crazy Cat, the tortoise, the horse, the elephant & the panda. Very few show a picture of anything but the front view, even when there are 3 pictures. Several animals which have tails aren't given them here. I know these aren't meant to be realistic depictions, but leaving off tails doesn't seem right. Instructions give hook size (3mm) and color of yarn, but not type of yarn (baby-weight?, sport-weight?) No idea of finished size or amount of yarn needed. No instructions on embroidery, expecially nothing on how to hide the ends of black facial markings in a white animal so they won't pull out. I'm glad I got this from the library.