I’ve already written (in my Which is the ‘Right’ Side? tutorial) about how to tell the right side from the wrong side of your work when making amigurumi, and when it really matters which side you have facing outwards, but there’s value in showing it in video form too, so you can really see how a piece of amigurumi forms, and what your stitches look like from the front and the back.

(If you’re already comfortable with the right and wrong sides, when you can use whichever side you prefer, and when it really matters which side faces outwards, you can skip this video, if you like – there’s nothing extra that I didn’t tell you in my original which is the ‘right’ side discussion – but I’m building my crochet tutorials video library and that has to include the essential basics as well as clever tips and new techniques.)

And now to the video tutorial (in right- and left-handed versions, of course):

Which is the ‘Right’ Side for Amigurumi (right-handed)

Click to watch this video on YouTube.

Which is the ‘Right’ Side for Amigurumi (left-handed)

Click to watch this video on YouTube.

Note: The videos may look a little small embedded in the blog: if so, you can fullscreen them or click through to YouTube to watch them full-sized 🙂

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Loved this tutorial? I have so many more amigurumi tips and tricks to share with you!

Boost your amigurumi skills with my latest book, The Essential Guide to Amigurumi, your comprehensive guide to amigurumi techniques and tips.

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If you saw my chameleon photoblog the other day, you’ll know I have lizards on the brain. I’ve already designed a gecko and a chameleon though, so I needed a different type of lizard to complete my lizard crochet pattern trilogy. An iguana seemed like the obvious choice, with lots of fun details to include, so that’s what I’ve made:

Iguana Fun Facts

• My design is based on the Green Iguana, which lives in rainforests in Central and South America (although if you change the colour you could make different types of iguana).
• Other types of iguana are adapted for different environments, such as the Marine Iguana from the Galapagos islands (which eats seaweed and algae and is an excellent swimmer), and the Desert Iguana from the southern US and Mexico (which can withstand high temperatures and burrows into sand to keep cool).
• The Green Iguana is about 2 metres long, and is easily recognised by its dewlap (the loose skin under its chin), the row of spikes down its back and its very long tail.
• Despite its size and fearsome appearance, the Green Iguana, like other iguanas, is primarily a herbivore.

I think I struck a good balance with this design between realistic and cute, detailed and easy to crochet. He’s worked in two shades of green, although a single-coloured iguana would look nice too; you’d just lose the tail striping. He’s an incredible 15″ (38cm) long, although, don’t worry, most of that is tail – he’s only 9″ (23cm) long excluding the tail 🙂

Let’s look at that tail for a moment – it’s a perfect excuse to practice my seamless, jogless Perfect Stripes: No-Cut Join technique, although the pattern includes a standard jogless stripes technique for those who aren’t feeling adventurous and don’t mind a slight visible seam in the tail.

The realistic legs are wired with pipe cleaners, but the pattern also includes tips for omitting the pipe cleaners if you want your iguana to be baby-safe.

As with all my crochet patterns from now and going forward, any pieces not worked in simple amigurumi style include a stitch diagram in addition to the written instructions, so you can use whichever instructions work best for your learning style. And, as always, photos aid with every step of the assembly, so you can be confident you’ll be able to make a perfect iguana too.

I hope you’ll enjoy my latest pattern! If you’d like to jump right into iguana-making, you can pick up the Iguana amigurumi crochet pattern right now from my shop. Or, if you’re not quite ready to buy, why not favourite/queue it on Ravelry so you don’t forget about it?

My sweet Maui just celebrated his 9th birthday, so it was time for me to make a new cat toy. Here’s the handsome birthday boy:

We adopted Maui from a shelter when he was a year old. He’s been our constant companion through 3 house moves and a move halfway around the world, and he’s adapted quickly to every change – if we’re with him, he’s happy (and vice versa).

Maui likes to ‘supervise’ my work by curling up next to me when I’m sitting crocheting on the sofa, and he never, ever steals my yarn – he somehow knows the difference between the crocheted balls that I make for him to maul and the ones that are going to be parts of my amigurumi designs and are not to be touched!

As he’s such a special cat, I wanted to make Maui a special toy for his birthday. The problem is that I’ve made him lots of toys before, and as he still loves the old ones, it’s getting harder to come up with different ideas. So I mixed and matched ideas from some of his other favourite toys, and enlisted my husband’s help for a quick bit of woodwork as the finishing touch.

I started with a crocheted fuzzy ball (based on my Fuzzballs pattern and a good way to use up some eyelash yarn).

I reused the same ‘interesting’ shade of yarn as that Fuzzball in the top right corner, which, despite losing its eyes and mouth many years ago, is still one of Maui’s favourite toys.

Then I added some metallized plastic chocolate wrappers for that irresistible crinkly noise (idea borrowed from last year’s Crinkle Ball Cat Toy tutorial).

These were firm favourites for months but look a bit bedraggled now. I think it may be time to make some replacements – luckily I have a tutorial to remind me of the method 🙂

I scrunched up the chocolate wrappers to stuff inside the ball, and also added a little pouch of catnip. I tied the ball to a long string, and left some dangling lengths of eyelash yarn on the other end of the ball for extra interest. Dave cut down a length of dowel and drilled a hole in one end so I could tie the string to the pole securely. And here’s the result:

It’s a very interactive cat toy: it appeals to sight (dangling yarn tails), sound (crinkly stuffing) and smell (catnip) and brings out Maui’s hunting skills as he runs and jumps after the moving toy. Here’s proof:

You know it’s a good cat toy when the only photos you can take are full of motion blur…

For an older or less active cat, toys on strings are really good for keeping kitty’s interest and enticing him to move, jump, and pounce. A plain ball or mouse gets boring, as it doesn’t move unless kitty moves it or you throw it for him; a ‘fishing line’ toy like this, with a string and a long handle, lets you keep the toy in motion, and your cat interested, without too much effort on your part. I’ve tied strings to toys before, but the pole makes it much easier to jerk the toy about enticingly…

Maui definitely likes his birthday present – I’ll call that mission accomplished!

The invisible decrease (invdec) is one of the two absolutely essential techniques for making beautifully neat amigurumi (the other being, of course, the magic ring). But invdec is a little tricky to get the hang of, and there are 2 points during the decrease where you can accidentally lengthen your stitch so it isn’t neat and tight, and the resulting decrease will be far more obvious.

Today I’d like to demonstrate these invdec problem points, so you know where the pitfalls are, and how to avoid them. You’ll find this tutorial useful if:

• You’re new to the invisible decrease technique (watch my video tutorial before you continue reading this!)
• You’ve tried invdec but been disappointed by your results
• Your invdecs look inconsistent, gappy, or too prominent
• You want your amigurumi to look as good as possible!

A Note about Tension

Although maintaining consistent tension on your yarn is a skill you need to master in order to crochet anything beautifully, it’s vitally important for amigurumi, as you need your stitches to be tight and even to produce the regular, firm amigurumi fabric that allows us to create complex ami shaping, and hides your stuffing. I’ve seen some people recommend that you tug on your yarn after every stitch to tighten it up, but that isn’t necessary if you maintain consistent tension.

Tensioning your yarn is a balance between the hook pulling forward and your other hand pulling backward.

How do you do that? Well, while your hook is pulling the yarn forward, your non-hook hand is simultaneously pulling back on the yarn, so you use a controlled amount of yarn to form each stitch. (You probably do this without even realising you’re doing it; if the yarn could just slide freely through your fingers with no tension, your hook would pull up large, inconsistent loops, and your crochet would look sloppy.)

When I talk below about pulling back on the yarn so the working loop is tight around your hook, the goal is to bring the tension back to your standard level, so the working loop should be the same size and tightness as it is for all your other stitches. If you go too far and pull it extra-tight, you’ll just make it more difficult to work back into that stitch in the following round.

Perfecting the invdec

If you look at the top of an invdec stitch, you’ll see there’s a ‘V’ at either side of the decrease. (As invisible decreases are practically indistinguishable from the surrounding stitches, I’ve crocheted my samples with the invdecs and the surrounding top loops in a different colour, so you can see what I’m talking about!)

Left: The source of the problems is these extra-long Vs at the top of the stitches surrounding the invdec.
Right: Invdec done right, with the Vs the same length as in the surrounding stitches.

These two Vs (A and B) are the culprits – if either or both of these is lengthened, there’ll be extra space around the invdec and it can look gappy or sloppy.

Left: The lengthened Vs have left a larger gap at either side of the invdec.
Right: Invdec is indistinguishable from the surrounding stitches (except for my helpful colour change!)

Loop A

Checkpoint: When you begin an invdec stitch, as you’re swinging the hook around to get the tip through both front loops, the working loop (the one that was already on your hook before you started the stitch) tends to loosen up.

Fix this: Once you’ve inserted your hook under the 2 front loops, and before you yarn over, tug the yarn to make sure the working loop is still tight on your hook and hasn’t lengthened.

Left: Lengthened working loop on hook will cause a loose stitch.
Right: Tightened loop – perfect!

Loop B

Checkpoint: After you complete the invdec, you’ve just turned 2 stitches into 1 stitch, and your hook is now further back than it usually would be for starting a new stitch. So this is another point where your yarn can make an extra-long loop, as you bring your hook forward over that extra distance to begin the next stitch.

Left: The position of the hook after a sc stitch.
Right: After an invdec, the hook is further back (dotted line marks the usual position), so there’s a greater distance to reach the next stitch.

Fix this: Make sure you keep tension on your yarn, so the loop on your hook doesn’t stretch out as you insert your hook into the stitch after the invdec. (If, after inserting your hook to begin the next stitch, you see the working loop has lengthened, just pull the yarn so the working loop is tight around your hook again, before you yarn over and continue with the stitch.)

Left: Lengthened working loop after inserting hook into next stitch.
Right: Tightened loop – perfect!

Multiple Decreases

The potential problem is doubled when you’re working 2 invdecs in a row, as you have the ‘too far back’ effect (Checkpoint B) and the ‘swinging the hook’ effect (Checkpoint A) both acting on the same loop, so you should make a little extra effort to be conscious of the size of the loop on your hook, and make sure it stays tight and doesn’t lengthen.

* * *

With a little extra effort to make sure you’re maintaining consistent tension, even while you decrease, your stitches will all stay the same size, and your invdecs will be as invisible as advertised!

Loved this tutorial? I have so many more amigurumi tips and tricks to share with you!

Boost your amigurumi skills with my latest book, The Essential Guide to Amigurumi, your comprehensive guide to amigurumi techniques and tips.

Do you find my tutorials helpful? If so, please consider making a contribution towards my time so I can continue to create clear and concise tutorials for you:

Thank you so much for your support! Now click below for loads more crochet video and photo tutorials (and do let me know what else you’d like me to cover in future tutorials…)

Make your own aquatic nursery with my new Baby Cephalopod collections: Octopus & Squid, and Cuttlefish & Nautilus. A perfect use for yarn scraps, these mini amigurumi take only 25-30m of yarn apiece, and work perfectly in any colour.

Cephalopod Fun Facts:

• Cephalopods are a type of mollusc, which means they have no skeleton and are related to snails.
• Cephalopod means ‘head-foot’, referring to the fact that their arms and tentacles are attached to their heads, not their bodies.
• There are only 4 types of cephalopod, so you can crochet a complete collection if you buy my patterns!
• Only the nautilus has a visible shell; squids and cuttlefish have an internal shell, and octopuses have no shell at all.
• In real life, each cephalopod has a different pupil shape: Nautilus (tiny pinhole), Squid (large and round), Cuttlefish (‘W’ shape), Octopus (horizontal slit). In amigurumi world, big black eyes are just fine though 😉

Meet the Cephalopods:

Baby Octopus has long curling arms and a realistic body shape:

Fun Fact: Octopuses are completely soft, with no bones or shell, so they can squeeze themselves through tiny gaps barely larger than their eye!

Baby Squid has two long tentacles and swimming fins at the back:

Fun Fact: There are about 300 species of squid, ranging in size from a only few centimetres to over 10m long!

Baby Cuttlefish has an undulating fin all the way around its body.

Fun Fact: Cuttlefish squirt a brown ink called sepia – this is the source of the name of the colour sepia!

Baby Nautilus has a mass of tentacles and a shell with a hood.

Fun Fact: Nautiluses are ancient cephalopods known as ‘living fossils’ because they’ve remained virtually unchanged for 500 million years!

About the Patterns:

Baby Cephalopods are between 5 and 6.5″ long, including tentacles. Each design is crocheted in only 2 or 3 pieces, so there’s minimal finishing to do when you’ve finished crocheting. And, although each has different arms/tentacles, they all use the same basic method, so, once you’ve made your first cephalopod, you’ll be able to fly through crocheting the tentacles for the others.

I think the few pieces and fast assembly would make these designs perfect candidates for those of you who enjoy selling your crocheted items…

All the designs are very simple to crochet, except the Nautilus, which is slightly more advanced as the body and shell look like two separate pieces, but they are actually one piece – the hood is the only separate part. (I think you’ll enjoy my special technique though – it’s very clever! I’ve included lots of extra photos with it to make sure everyone will able to create the clever two-piece shell/body effect.)

As well as my usual step-by-step photos, any pieces that are crocheted in non-amigurumi style include crochet stitch diagrams in addition to full written instructions, so you can follow whichever method you prefer. (I’m hoping you’ll find the stitch diagrams to be a useful addition to my patterns; one diagram is clearer than a whole series of round-by-round photos.)

These designs are available as two sets of 2 patterns:

Left: Baby Cephalopods 1: Octopus & Squid
Right: Baby Cephalopods 2: Cuttlefish & Nautilus

But, because these baby best friends can’t bear to be apart, I’ve put together a multipack deal for you when you buy both sets: Baby Cephalopods 1 & 2 includes all four patterns for a bargain price.

Not ready to buy yet? Queue/heart them on Ravelry!
Set 1: Set 2:

I first sketched out these designs and picked out the yarn colours two years ago, before I left Canada. It’s taken all this time to simplify and perfect them. I think I’ll make a second set in more realistic colours, because, now I’ve finally finished the patterns, they’re irresistibly quick and fun to crochet! I hope you’ll enjoy making them as much as I do…

Last July, I posted about my plan to design one knitted and one crocheted cardigan for myself, just for fun:

Although the crocheted cardigan took a fraction of the time of the knitted one to make, I actually completed the knitted one first – probably because it was Southern hemisphere winter, so knitting a warm cardigan was more appealing than weaving in lots of fiddly ends on a lacey crocheted cardigan! But now, finally, here’s my finished crocheted cardigan:

You may be thinking that the stitch pattern looks familiar, and you’d be right: I knew I wouldn’t be publishing a pattern for this cardigan, but I liked this stitch pattern so much after I came up with it that I used the same stitch pattern in my Frosty Windows Scarf too – no point in keeping a good stitch pattern to myself when you can enjoy it too, in another format!

The story of this cardigan…

I had 3 skeins of deliciously smooth and soft LB Collection Cotton Bamboo yarn in my yarn stash since I chose it as my prize for winning the Instructables/Lion Brand Critter Contest in 2010. I intended to make a PlanetJune Accessories pattern of some sort from it and came up with a stitch pattern, but I hadn’t come up with the perfect project idea.

I picked it up again a few months ago and decided to do something with it. I still liked the stitch pattern I’d designed and thought I’d try turning it into a light summery cardigan. I used a slightly larger hook than recommended so I’d have a nice drapey fabric. I didn’t work out a formal pattern – I just measured some of my existing cardigans and crocheted pieces (two fronts and a back) in my stitch pattern that approximated those sizes. Knowing I didn’t have to keep notes for a pattern to publish made it easy to fly through the crocheting!

My first problem came when I realised I wouldn’t have enough yarn to complete both sleeves and finish the garment – and obviously no way to get more from the US without great expense – so I had to rethink the design for 3/4 length sleeves. I’d worked the sleeves from the cuff up, and I was working both at once (crocheting one round of one sleeve, and repeating the same round on the other sleeve with a separate ball of yarn) so I’d make sure I’d end up with two sleeves that matched. Changing my design to 3/4 length sleeves meant frogging both sleeves entirely and starting again, as they were too fitted at the wrist to wear the original cuff higher up my arm.

And then my second problem: as I’d made the sleeves fairly close-fitting, the armholes I’d left in the body were far too large. That was easily fixed; I just crocheted an edging around both the sleeve tops and the armholes, decreasing as I went around the armholes until I had the same number of stitches in each piece. (An added bonus of this was that the seaming was ridiculously easy and tidy, as I had the same number of stitches on each side to begin with.)

Shoulder seam

To tie it together, I used the same stitch for the body/sleeve linking stitches that I planned to use for the cardigan’s edging. And then it was just a matter of edging the entire garment, adding space for buttons on one side and buttonholes on the other. I edged the cardigan using linked stitches (which I love – I’ll make a video tutorial for them at some time!) to add some structure without stiffness, and I used foundation stitches to leave vertical buttonholes – easy and neat.

All that remained was to weave the ends in securely, block the cardigan, and sew on the buttons. I found the perfect buttons in a craft shop in Jersey while visiting my parents last July, but then I lost my momentum as it was winter here and not the right weather for this type of light cover-up. But now it’s summer and this cardigan is just what I need! So weave, wash, block, sew, photograph, and here we are 🙂

I flipped the corner up to show you one of the wooden button (left) and one of the hidden anchor buttons on the inside (right)

I used my favourite technique of stitching each button with an unobtrusive anchor button on the inside, to avoid putting strain on the yarn. The finished cardigan is light, comfortable, and silky-soft – I’m already enjoying wearing it:

What’s Next?

This project has convinced me that I really can make non-embarrassing wearable clothes for myself, so I really want to make more, but, with my hand problems, I need to save most of my crochet time for designs I can publish. For that reason, I’ll probably be knitting more clothes than I crochet in future: knitting uses different motions, so I can knit and crochet for far longer than I could just crochet.

I’m really glad to have made a crocheted garment that isn’t stiff, boxy or unflattering – I love crochet and I want to make it clear that, although you’ll be seeing me make more knitted sweaters in future, I’ll never abandon crochet in favour of knitting. If any knitting snobs think I’m knitting clothes because knitting is superior to crochet, I’ll be able to point to this cardigan as evidence to the contrary!

I suffer from hand pains similar to arthritis, especially when I overuse my hands with too much crochet, typing, driving, etc. A few years ago, I saw some hand specialists and was given various support devices to help minimise the pain and help my recovery. The biggest problem is at the base of my thumbs (the ‘basal joint’, according to the hand specialist I saw), and, over the years, I’ve discovered that what helps most is the warmth and compression provided by a stretchy fitted glove that supports my thumb.

1. Wrist support prescribed by specialist (good for wrist pains, but it does nothing for my thumb).
2. Custom-made rigid thumb support to immobilise my thumb joint (I only wear it at night now, as I can’t do anything with my hand while wearing it).
3. Handeze therapeutic support gloves are quite helpful, but the side seams dig into my hands, so I have to wear them inside out. I also find the fabric between my fingers slightly annoying.
4. My first prototype sewn thumb-support glove.

My well-worn thumb-support glove.

After trying all sorts of options, I developed the fingerless support gloves pictured above, sewn from stretch fabric (with the seams on the outside so they don’t dig into my hands). I’ve worn them for years whenever I feel the need, and, as you can see, they now look a little worse for wear!

I need to make some more, but, in the meantime, I found some stretchy sock-type yarn (Elle Stretch) and wondered if I could use that to crochet some gloves that may look a little more respectable to wear in public, help support my hands with warmth and compression, and still be flexible and unobtrusive enough to let me crochet, type, etc without hindrance. I decided to make these gloves a little longer than the fabric gloves, to keep my knuckles and wrists warm and supported too. And here’s the result:

I approached this project just like I would the shaping for an amigurumi: single crochet in a spiral, with (invisible) increases and decreases for shaping, to match the shape of my hand exactly. To save breaking the yarn, I surface crocheted down the finished thumb to get back to the hand and continue the main part of the glove. To keep it stretchy, I used foundation single crochet in place of chains for the foundation and the thumb gusset.

You can see that the shape conforms to my hand so well that the gloves are still hand-shaped even when I’m not wearing them! Although, from the above photo, they may look rigid and uncomfortable, the stretch in the yarn means they have plenty of give and I can easily move my hands into any position (see the photo below), so they’re fine to wear while typing and crafting. I’m actually wearing them now, as I type this post 🙂

Please don’t ask for a pattern – as this is a very fitted glove, I shaped it to fit my hands perfectly. There are so many factors to consider: gauge, the stretchiness of the yarn, and the size/shape of your hand; creating a pattern that would work for all hand sizes would be more work than I could justify.

Isn’t it interesting to see how my amigurumi-shaping skills can be translated into making functional items, as well as decorative ones? I wonder what other useful objects I could crochet…

Thanks to my Commissions system, it’s time to launch my 21st dog crochet pattern, AmiDogs Scottish Terrier:

Queue or favourite Scottie on Ravelry:

My Scottie Dog completes Set 7 of the AmiDogs, for what it’s worth – I mostly just make the sets now for my Etsy shop, as almost everyone takes advantage of the mix-and-match Custom Set for the same price in my shop. But, if you’ve been waiting for AmiDogs Set 7, here’s the group shot of #19 Basset Hound, #20 Rottweiler, and #21 Scottish Terrier:

I made my Scottie’s collar in red and green to hint at a Scottish tartan, but I don’t know if that comes through on such a small scale! Either way, it adds a nice splash of colour to an all-black dog with black eyes and a black nose…

Here are the other 20 AmiDogs breeds:

Don’t forget to download the re-released patterns of any of these you’ve already purchased! The new layout saves 1-2 pages on average, and the updated patterns include details like finished size info and US/UK conversions; they print equally well on letter- or A4-sized paper, and they’ve been updated with extra information and tips. Just log back into your PlanetJune account to re-download the new versions of your patterns. (If you originally ordered through Etsy or similar, see yesterday’s re-release announcement for how to get the new versions.)

After the epic task of re-editing and re-formatting all my prior dog designs, plus creating the new Scottie, I feel a bit dogged-out now – I definitely need a break before I design any more AmiDogs! You can still commission new designs though, if your favourite dogs are missing from my collection – I have 4 fully pledged commissions in the queue, so, even if another new design was commissioned today, it’d be months before I get to it.

If you know someone who loves Scotties or has a Scottish connection, you can pick up the AmiDogs Scottish Terrier pattern in the shop right now. Or, if you’d like to add several dogs to your pattern collection, I recommend my AmiDogs Custom Set – you can choose any 3 dog breeds for a bargain price. And you’ll get the AmiDogs Collar pattern as a free bonus with any AmiDogs purchase 🙂

Thanks to everyone who commissioned me to make this design – if you haven’t already, you can log into your PlanetJune account to download your pattern! Next up on the commissions list: the Killer Whale (Orca) – I’ll be collecting pledge monies on Monday for that one, and then I can start figuring out those lovely black and white markings…