Time spent: About a few hours for each
Link to Pattern: Otter, Turtle, Deer
I’ve been learning how to crochet from winter 2022 and started making amigurumi late July this year. The turtle was my first project and it was a very satisfying process to bring my first plush animal to life. I like how amigurumi doesn't require very complex methods, as long as you know how to do the single crochet and the magic circle you can basically make every animal imaginable, which itself is a very exciting idea!
I made the deer when I was feeling a bit sick the other day. I really wanted to try making a variety of animals after finishing the turtle. Being completely new to making separate body parts and combining them together, the deer is a bit of a challenge, and I couldn't really get the number of stitches right by the end of the round when I have to attach all of its limbs. As a result, I couldn’t be bothered to count when there are more than 50 stitches for each round, so I just increased and decreased stitches as I see fit, and that has unfortunately bitten me right back on the ass because I ended up with way too many stitches in one of the front legs, making one side of its chest way bigger than the other.
Regardless, these animals have all been good practice and gave me a taste of the joy of making both simple and slightly more complex animals. I would definitely want to try making the deer again at some point. Some things I can improve include, first making sure I get the number of stitches right, and secondly trying out the colour changes since I was a bit too intimidated to do the crazy colour changes as shown in the tutorial. I didn't realise how important the colours are until the end product ended up looking more like a donkey than a deer.
Overall these are all super fun projects for a beginner like me and I would definitely love to redo some of these in the future.
Date Published: 27th August 2023