Craft Blog

Recently I’ve been working from “Mr Funky’s Super Crochet Wonderful” by Narumi Ogawa. I love Amigurumi and Japanese crochet patterns in general, and this little guy begged me to be made when I flicked through the book.

Pattern: Mr Funky’s Pretty Little Kitty from Super Crochet Wonderful, the pattern is also available at Narumi Ogawa’s Etsy shop, although I feel that I should say that I find it very odd that she’s selling the “Spunky Funky Monkey” and “Pretty Little Kitty” as separate patterns at $5 each, they are exactly the same pattern other than the addition of a circle for the monkey’s face and the slight difference in the ears. In her book they are listed as one pattern with slight modifications.
Level: Intermediate
Time taken: I crochet slowly and usually whilst watching telly, so this is no gauge, but it took me about three hours, maybe slightly more.
License: In the book permission is given to sell the finished product at “fairs, bazaars and craft shows”, however on the individual pattern for sale on Narumi’s Etsy store it states “Please do not use this pattern for commercial or retail purpose”, so I’m not 100% sure what the go is there.
Yarn Used: A worsted weight (12 ply) yarn is recommended, but I’m stash busting so my kitty is made from an acrylic baby yarn I picked up over two years ago that has been dying a slow death at the bottom of my stash basket.

Alterations

• The change of yarn is probably the most obvious, the baby/sport weight yarn combined with a 3mm hook leaves the kitty sitting about 6 inches high at the very most. This design translates very nicely to the thinner yarn, and I’ll even say that it’s kind of cute being so small.
• No safety eyes! Ack, this is annoying me so much, I had a brain fart and attached the head to the body before I attached the eyes, meaning I had to sew on seed beads. I think the eyes (and the curled whiskers) totally make the pattern and I’m a bit bummed about this.
• No whiskers, I haven’t seen “cotton covered wire” anywhere, but I may have just missed it, I plan to go to the local craft store later in the week and will see if I can find any to finish the kitty off.

Tips

• Put your safety eyes in before sewing the head to the body!
• I think the addition of a pipe cleaner in the tail so you can mirror the curls in the whiskers would be awesome, unfortunately, I only thought of this after attaching the tail.
• I love the addition of the clothes crocheted into the body of the kitty in the middle of this picture, this is one of the reasons I love Ravelry, it’s great seeing the same pattern coming out in so many different ways. The way the pattern is done also means that it would be fairly simply to do, the only difference would be a yarn change midway through the body.

Overall it’s a nice pattern, I didn’t find any errors in the directions or the counts, there are a few things that did bother me but I’ll save them for the complete book review in a couple of weeks - I want to make a few more items from the book before I make up my mind. The finished object is cute and it’s a great pattern to move from beginner to more advanced Amigurumi. The only real negative I think is the discrepancies in the licensing, but if you’re only interested in making this for yourself then that isn’t even an issue.

Crochet on tea towels is (in my opinion) a very Aussie tradition, my mum thinks it’s hilarious that I’ve resorted to crocheting on tea towels and insists that this alone should be enough for Mr Rudd to grant me citizenship. I’m not quite convinced on this one, but I do love that something so simple can make an otherwise cheapy pair of teatowels look so much cuter.

If you’re experienced at crochet this is a very quick project to throw together, if you’re not then keep your eye out for some crochet video tutorials coming over the next week or so on CraftBlog.

You will need

• A tea towel - I picked up this pair for a couple of dollars at my local junk shop/dollar store. In my house tea towels generally have a shelf life of a month or two before I leave them on top of the stove and set fire to them, so I never indulge in the really pretty expensive ones!
• Crochet cotton - I used 5 ply Coton-A by Sullivans, it’s about $3 for a ball.
• 3.5mm crochet hook (E in US sizes)

Chain the length of your tea towel edge ending on a multiple of five, try not to stretch out your chain as you measure.

SC in second chain from your hook, *skip one chain, 7 dc in next chain, skip one chain, sc in next chain*

Repeat from * to * until you reach the end of your chain, ending with a sc in your final loop.

Using a needle and thread stitch to the edge of your tea towel using small stitches, repeat for the opposing side.

I also add a hanging loop on mine halfway down the long side, just ch 20 or so, then turn and sc in each loop. Join at the end and then stitch onto your tea towel.