The first amigurumi I finished was this Baron Zemo doll. While I was very excited to have found this pattern, I started to get nervous when everyone I showed it to responded:

“Whos’ that?”

“It’s Baron Zemo!” I’d reply.

“Oh!” they would say, “Who’s that?”

But I held faith that if anyone would know who this was, and would know without me having to explain, it was my youngest. They’re a big Marvel fan, and the Winter Solider is their very favorite. For anyone still lost: Baron Zemo is the main antagonist in ‘Captain America: Civil War’ and also important in the ‘Falcon and the Winter Solider’ TV series. And – I was right. They knew immediately and they love him.

A probably more well-known Marvel character is amigurumi #2: Vision. Isn’t he cute? Both patterns are from Guichai on Etsy. They have so many cute patterns it was hard to choose. I changed the cape a little because I picked a yarn that was a little too small to fit the pattern as written.

My daughter gave me the book: Edward’s Menagerie for Christmas. Every single critter in it is adorable so it was tough to pick a first project, but I settled on Hank. Making the wool was a new technique for me, so that was fun to learn.

My Hank looks a little different then the one in the book, but I just used basic acrylic yarn that I had on hand instead of the fancy natural alpaca yarns all the samples in the book are made with. Plus I think I stuffed mine more firmly than recommended. The book mentions stuffing lightly to make the critters softer and floppier. I think less firm stuffing would have also made putting the wool on a little easier. It was difficult at times to get my hook into the body stitches because it was so firm there was nowhere for my hook to fit, and it sometimes pulled a little stuffing back out with it.

I joined in the ornament exchange at work this past December. The co-worker’s name I drew likes crochet, but doesn’t do much of it herself. So I knew I wanted to crochet her ornament. After looking at a lot of patterns for more traditional ornaments, I had the idea to make her a Cocker Spaniel, as she is a big fan of the breed and has one of her own. I used the book Amigurume Pets to make it. This is a lot like the book AmiguruMe (and written by the same person) in that it has different head types, body types, legs, etc. that you combine to make a pet that looks the way you want. There is even a table to help you figure out what pieces to use to make various dog or cat breeds. Unfortunately, a Cocker Spaniel is not in that table. I used most of the recommendations for the Beagle, substituting a docked tail for whatever the Beagle tail was.

The other thing I did was used a more fluffy, kinked type of yarn for the ears and legs to hopefully make it look the way Cocker Spaniels look when they have been nicely groomed. Crocheting the fluffy yarn (I used Lion Brand Homespun in Pearls color) with tight amigurumi stitching took away a lot of the fluffyness but I think the effect still mostly looked good. It was super difficult to crochet tight with that yarn though and I will probably try to avoid using it for tight work again.

My co-worker loved it though, so it was all worthwhile.