Faved Friday – Flappy Flounder

I bought this pattern the day it came out. The instant I saw it, I knew that it had to be mine.

This photo is from cheezombie's pattern page

Who can possibly look a this and not laugh. Or at least giggle – a wee chortle is inevitable. To make things even worse (better) the designer’s name is cheezombie. You are killing me. She has tons of other fantastic toys to knit and crochet, you can find the patterns on Ravelry or at her Etsy store. Coincidentally, like last weeks designer Lily Go, Ms. Zombie also designs in both knit and crochet. Which means if you are unlucky enough to not know how to crochet – you can knit yourself a flounder:

Also Ms. Zombie's photo, this is the knitted one

hee hee hee – it’s the eyes I think …

Both of these are representatives of a category of knit/crochet called amigurumi, which I believe is Japanese for “ridiculously cute, small, crocheted/knitted critters and objects that serve no other purpose than to be fun.” But my translation skills are a bit rusty. I have done a small amount of amiguruwhatsis – and it is always fun. I made one of these:

A cranky Scrubbie!

for my BFF. If I ever made more than one of anything I would make another – I wish I had one. In keeping with a rough sea/water theme, I have also made one of these:

Transformer Sushi Amigooroomee

It was supposed to be a fish - go figure.

Being an example of another category of the craft – toys that transform from one thing into another. For double the cuteness impact. If I could spend all day knitting and crocheting completely non-functional items, my house (and all of the homes of my friends) would be inundated with these things.

As it is, I am just going to try and bust out a Flappy Flounder some time in the near future. The new nephew (who is due today) has a fish/sea themed decorative theme for his nursery (whenever he decides to take residence). I think he will need a flounder.

Posted by

Barbara

Posted on

November 11, 2011

Posted under

Chatty, Crochet

Comments

Faved Friday

I thought I would start something new today, and hopefully I will be able to keep it going for awhile. For a post on Fridays I think it would be fun to feature something that I love that was designed by someone else. An item that has been on my to make list for eons, or one that has just appeared and jumped to the top of the pile.

I know that many designers say that they don’t look at others’ work – but that is not me. Looking at what others (usually much more experienced others) have done both educates and inspires me. Never would I knowingly “rip someone off” but I learn best by doing. What better way to learn a new technique than to make something that uses that technique and then have an awesome FO to show for your efforts?

To start off with, something that you don’t see much of around here – crochet. I have been crocheting since I was around 8 years old, but somehow my skill level hasn’t advanced much beyond top down hats and granny squares. Not that there is anything wrong with top down hats and granny squares. But I would like to improve in this area.

I own the yarn for this shawl.

I own the pattern for this shawl.

I just haven’t gotten around to making this shawl.

Lily Go's beautiful Cassandra (her photograph)

Lily Go is a truly inspirational designer for me (her website is here). She knits & crochets with apparently equal ease and designs the same. When this shawl was introduced I immediately fell in love with it and bought a copy. But crochet is not my forte and the first yarn I tried to use did not play well with the swatch.

The agony of swatching

I didn’t like anything I managed – so I scrapped the idea. It needed a yarn with much more loft than I was using. Sometimes it is better to bide one’s time and wait for the perfect yarn to come along. As I said, I own some yarn earmarked for this – but am open to suggestions. It would be a hardship to have to buy yarn, but I would totally take one for the team. For science.

Anyone have any ideas?