Customer Reviews

Super Cute: 25 Amigurumi Animals

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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).

My teenaged son gave me this book for Christmas, because he knew I didn't have anything similar and he thought I might enjoy this. He was right. It's been fun reading through all the patterns and completing my first project, the gray kitty on the cover. I look forward to making other creatures from the book. However, as other reviewers have noted, there are challenges doing some of the book's projects. A beginning crocheter might become frustrated. More experienced crocheters, like myself, can probably overcome the challenges and have fun.

WHAT I LIKED ABOUT THE BOOK:

1) There is a nice introduction to making amigurumi animals, which I found helpful as a newbie to this craft.

2) The animals are very clever and look fun to make. (Love the rat & turtle.)

3) There is a great variety of animal types... pets, bugs, ocean creatures, wild animals.

4) The photography is very clear and shows great stitch definition. My only issue is that sometimes crucial parts of the animals are obscured by the scenery or by the angle of the photo.

SOME CHALLENGES I SAW IN THE BOOK (This list is long, but really, I do like the book!):

1) The written instructions do not mention joining rounds, but the charts show the slip stitch & chain symbols, suggesting joined rounds. (See my update below)

2) Conversely, the charts don't always tell you how many rounds to do. Often there is just a partial chart to get you started, but then you have to consult the instructions for the number of rounds or finished length of the element.

3) The starting ring of sc is not counted as a round.

4) Single crochet is the most common stitch used throughout the book, however, a couple of the special stitches do not seem clearly described. I can figure these out, but this may be a challenge for some beginning crocheters.

5) The patterns tell you to sew the parts together as shown in the photos, but sometimes you can't see crucial parts of the animal, like the back end.

6) Some of the written instructions are very brief and assume familiarity with crochet. An example is "Make 50 ch. Sc to end." It is implied that you will turn after completing the beginning chain and single crochet back along the chains.

7) Lastly, there are crocheted items (such as a mushroom, leaf or tree branch) in some of the photos that are just there as scenery, but there's no information on how to make these. I know it's a book of amigurumi animals, but if there is an amigurumi mushroom in the photo, it would be nice to have the pattern.

So did I enjoy making my first project? Yes, very much. Will I make more? Yes, definitely. Do I recommend the book? Yes, with the caveats noted above.

In case you are interested, I've posted a photo of the cat I made in the photo gallery.

1/29/10 - Since I mentioned above that the written instructions and charts were not in agreement about joining rounds or not, I'm editing my review to report that I've now tried it both ways. My first project (a cat) has joined rounds and my second project (a snail) does not. Both approaches work, but the latter results in a smoother look. Use of stitch markers is needed to mark the beginning of a round.

I received this book as a gift and was eager to start making some of the patterns. Started off with the Peculiar Parrot. If it wasn't for the chart provided, I would not have known that the patterns called for joined rounds instead of continuous spiraling rounds which can really make a difference. The round notations do not indicate you should end each round with a slip stitch and begin each new round with a ch 1. I was also completely lost on the explanation of the "bubble" stitch:

"Insert hook into the first sc and pull out the yarn (enough to make one bubble) 3 times, hook the yarn and pull it all the way through the 3 loops, then hook the yarn and pull it out to secure the bubble." What?

There doesn't appear to be an online forum to correct the mistakes either, like Elizabeth Doherty or Ana Paula offer regarding their books. I would recommend either of those author's books over Miss Obaachan's.

I have made several of these little animals. The brown dog did not look like the picture at all. The body is too small and the legs are too long. It's hard to tell how to assemble some of the limbs by the pictures. The bunnies turned out a little funny. The cheeks looked too large, and there were no instructions on how to do a tail. A tail-less bunny looks a little funny. I attempted the panda, then realized there were no instructions on how to do the black of the eyes. Where are the rest of the instructions? The author of the book needs to do a better job of editing. Too much confusion!!!

I love to make amigurumi so I picked up this book and tried making the Floppy Ears Puppy. His body was WAY too small for the rest of his parts and I followed all the directions. I had to double the size of his body and it was still too small for his ears and legs. I was disappointed and have many other books that I enjoy using by far. So sad, I had high hopes to make these little critters.

I haven't managed to have the time to make anything out of the book yet, but I really like this one. First it does in fact have 25 patterns, and unlike a lot of the other amigurumi books I have flipped through, the patterns in this book are not the same thing over and over with slight variations. Nearly all of the patterns have something that makes them unique from each other, which is exactly what I wanted. I bought this book to build a foundation of amigurumi techniques so I can eventually make my own designs. There is also a blurp in the front of the book that gives advice on how to make your own designs.

The patterns are very easy to read, the instructions have the line number in bold and are double spaced, making each individual line more readable instead of everything being jumbled up. At the bottom of the page are "blueprints" of the patterns for those more visually inclined folks.

I would recommend this book for anyone who want to learn how to make cute amigurumi, or who just want to add to their pattern collection.

I've completed the snowy owl in "Super Cute" and its easy to work with clear instructions and very cute results. Can't wait to make all of these!

My children wanted me to crochet the dolphin from this book (which in general has pretty cute designs, and pretty clear directions) but the ONE thing that I made from this book so far was missing quite an important piece of its anatomy, making it look more like a manatee than a dolphin.

But, alas, my kids loved it, and I have yet to crochet the missing dorsal fin.