38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Love it!, October 6, 2009
This review is from: Super Cute: 25 Amigurumi Animals (Paperback)
I think I may own every amigurumi book available on today's market so when this one came today I thought it might give me one or two new ideas. Oh how wrong I was! This delightful book has variations that I have yet to see anywhere else. I am the type that needs a pattern. I can make a basic bunny, cat or bear without a pattern but since I make animals for children in hospitals, I try to find the most appealing patterns. This book not only contains very clear crocheting instructions, it also has a short section on how to design your own animals. The monkey in this book is the cutest I have ever seen. There are also two bears called Glum and Glummer which are perfect for sick children. There is a parrot that made me laugh out loud and the parakeets are too cute for words. The turtle? Best ever. In this book there is a puppy with floppy ears, puppy with fluffy fur, puppy with wagging tail, mini-kitten, crazy kitten, bad budgies, bouncing bunnies, rat attack (with a great long nose), the slow and steady turtle with a unique shell, hamster heroes, a beautiful horse, the particular parrot, floopy the fish (perhaps the only one I didn't care for), slither snake with a sweet beret, monkey mischief, glum and glummer bears, trunks and tusk elephant, baby panda, a very cute Mr. Octopus, dolphin days (not much different you can do with a dolphin; this is a typical one), little blue penguin, blind as a barn bat (uses felt for wings and ears), Slippy and Slimy snails with the best faces, Pond frog (finally! a frog that looks like a frog!) and finally, lazy ladybugs. Some of the patterns call for felt trim but I usually crochet circles or ovals and attach them. If this is your first leap into these animals, I would think this would be an excellent book for a beginning because of the oh-so-clear instructions. The author uses very small hooks but I usually use an F or G hook. I buy my yarn at Walmart and find that Red Heart or Vanna's yarn works best at that gauge. I think a beginner would find the tiny hooks to be daunting.
As for me, who has been doing this for awhile, I am overwhelmed by the new ideas and can't wait to finish my current project so I can dive into these. I am NOT a professional reviewer. I do NOT know the author although I would like to thank her for sharing her wonderful ideas. I am a stuck-in-the-mud middle-aged Nascar addict from Zephyrhills, Florida who loves making children smile. There is an awesome need all over the country for donations. The Shriners or any local hospital would be more than happy to take any tiny animals you would like to donate. I am just suggesting this because these cost almost nothing to make. I love watching them come into being under my hook. It is a very inexpensive and small way that I give back to the world.
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25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Cute projects but..., November 15, 2009
This review is from: Super Cute: 25 Amigurumi Animals (Paperback)
When I received this book I thought the projects were cute and inventive and couldn't wait to start on them, so far though I have been somewhat disappointed. Many of the pictures do not include all parts of the finished work, for example I made the fish and there are directions for the tail but no pictures of the fish with the tail showing (same with the budgie wings); there were also directions for making scales but I have no idea where they are supposed go from the pictures. So far I have also found a couple of mistakes in the directions. The bird pattern has several places where you need to repeat a series of crochets in order to complete the round but that instruction is left out. Also there are places where she neglects to mention you need to embroider the face, insert the eyes or change yarn color. I consider myself to be an intermediate crocheter and can usually figure it out ( I keep a pencil handy when working from this book so I can make revisions) but this is not a good book for beginners.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Adorable, and a few new techniques, November 11, 2009
This review is from: Super Cute: 25 Amigurumi Animals (Paperback)
I collect quite a few amigurumi books for the patterns as well as the inspiration. Usually I find a book is one or the other, but Super Cute: 25 Amigurumi Animals is both.
Some features used in this book that I haven't seen in others:
- Adding felt/cloth features like stitched-on bellies and wings
- Employing smaller-weight thread and smaller crochet hook to build small features like beaks
- Additional embroidery-style stitching used to color-in features like facial stripes, the feet of the birds, etc
- Applique'ing on seperately crocheted features (colored bear cheeks) similar to how we attach seperately crocheted limbs
As for the patterns themselves, they range from "simple stuff" like the snake, to "ah, typical Japanese-style dog" (ala "Ami Dogs") to "whoa, budgies and an octopus?". There's a decent sampling of patterns, with both american style and Japanese "chart style" instructions -- being a visual person, I prefer the japanese charts with the american spelled-out stitches to fall back on.
Most of the animals also come with optional accessories, which I'm not quite fond of but I can simply leave them off. Some might consider this a strong feature, particularly since things like hats, scarves, and those sorts of things can be used on other amigurumi's.
The instructions at the beginning are very well written, so if you haven't yet gotten the courage to try crocheting, this would be an excellent book to start. If you're an american amigurumi crafter, you could also use this book as a reference for how to read Japanese amigurumi books, since you merely need to understand the circular-style diagrams.
Overall, it's a great book. Some of the patterns seemed familiar to me, but others are quite unique so it's a fair trade-off. The instructional value of this book is high, and it is a good inspirational book for established amigurumi crocheters (and even includes a few pages on building your own patterns).
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