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Hey, I'm Andrea Lemire, the education coordinator here at the Lion Brand Yarn Studio. I'm going
to show you some really cool techniques for beginning crochet, and hopefully, you'll have
as much fun as I have with it. Okay, lets get started.
So, I'm going to talk about how you crochet Amigurumi, which are the adorable stuffed
animals. They are simply a combination of a lot of those basic crochet techniques. I'll
show you on this little fish here the basic construction of how all these shapes are created.
So, you're going to start with one of the beginning in the rounds method, I do recommend
the one that starts with the chain-to that's in the crocheting in the round video, just
because that makes a nice tight opening so when you're stuffing them you won't have stuffing
spilling out of that area and then you're going to work in the rounds increasing out
until that tube you're making is as wide as it needs to be. And here the pattern would
specify how many rounds you're going to work for that. To make it into an actual tube shape,
like in this fish body, that's when you stop increasing and you just start working in rounds
until the tube is as long as you need it to be. At the opposite end, then you work decreasing
rounds and to learn how to do that as well as the increasing you can check out the Increasing
and Decreasing Video. And then once you're back down to a small opening again, that's
when you fasten off. And what you want to do is stop almost two thirds to three quarters
of the way through the tube that you're making and that's when you will stuff it. Fiberfill
is a great stuffing to use for these because it soft and machine washable, so it's great
if you're giving it to a baby as a toy.
So, that's just one way to make a basic tube shape but all of these Amigurumi that you
see are simply different combinations of tubes. So, different increasing and decreasing rounds
to make all the shapes that fit together. Each one is stuffed and then they're sewn
together into the animal shapes.
Something else that you might want to keep in mind if you are putting eyes on an Amigurumi
and you're not going to sew the eyes in and you're using these black eyes here, you want
to make sure that you're getting safety eyes. And safety eyes look like this, they're in
a package and they have a white backing which clips on, it locks in and you're going to
put these in before you stuff that tube. And it's important to use safety eyes, in particular
if you're giving the Amigurumi to a child or baby just because they won't pop out and
so there is no danger of the child swallowing the eye. So that's definitely important to
keep in mind based on who you're giving them to.
So, simply all combinations of all those basic crochet stitches, most of them are done with
a single crochet, so if that's all you know so far check out the Increasing and Decreasing
video and you'd be making Amigurumis nonstop. For all these Amigurumi patterns in particular,
you can go to Lionbrand.com under the pattern finder and the best way to search for them
there is to actually search for the name of the animal you want to make and chances are
you should find it there. So, as you can see, Amigurumi are simply a combination of very
simple techniques. They're really fun to make, they make great gifts, and they're absolutely
addictive.