Bright Green Amigurumi Bird Eating Candy

I took up crochet earlier this year (it's been about 5 months now since I started) and am really enjoying it. When I started I was most excited about making clothing and jewelry, but I found an online class for making amigurumi (crocheted or knitted stuffed animals) taught by Stacey Trock (here's the link to the class: www.craftsy.com/class/Amigurum… ) and I find it really fun! I actually always wanted to make stuffed animals when I was a little kid (my bro and I did succeed in making little beanbag animals, but they didn't look all that good hehe ).

This photo was taken by my art student brother (thanks bro!)

This bird was the first assignment in Stacey Trock's Amigurumi Woodland Animals crochet course and I completed it in May 2013. Here is the project description that I wrote for the class:

Materials

1. CROCHET HOOKS. Boye aluminum crochet hooks, size G/6 (4.25 mm) for the beak and wings, and size H/8 (5 mm) for the body 2. METAL YARN NEEDLE. 3. 100% POLYESTER STUFFING (Fairfield "Crafter's Choice brand) 4. WORSTED WEIGHT 100% COTTON YARN, Sugar 'n Creme in Hot Green (body). Sugar 'n Creme in Yellow (beak). 5. WORSTED WEIGHT ACRYLIC YARN in black (not sure what brand, threw away the label) for eyes.

What was your inspiration?

I love fat animals, so I was thrilled to see that the fat baby bird pattern was the first in the Amigurumi Woodland Animals class! I decided to make it green because I had some green yarn (it's labeled "hot green" but I think it's more of a chartreuse shade) that I'd purchased because I wanted to make something for my Grandma, and her birthstone is the peridot, which is of that color.

I love love love the Amigurumi Woodland Animals class - the videos are so fun to watch and helpful! I'd been learning crochet mainly from books and YouTube videos, but the videos in this class cleared up a lot of things I'd been confused about. Stacey is a great instructor, very appealing and soothing, and if you look at her patterns and projects you'll see that all her work is super cute!

What are you most proud of?

I'm happy with how the eyes turned out. I actually really like the look of the black plastic animal eyes because they're so round and shiny, but I'd forgotten to buy some. Since someone who'd completed this project using baby safe eyes commented that it was hard to make them not bug out, and because I knew I'd probably have a hard time make two eyes of uniform size, I decided to use black yarn to "embroider" some eyes on, and make them a rectangle shape. This makes the eyes lie pretty flat on the fabric. He looks a bit evil or soulless in my opinion but that's okay

Also, I was crocheting pretty tightly (I haven't been crocheting for long and I still struggle with controlling yarn tension), which I was afraid would mess up the fabric somehow but it turned out alright, and also perhaps the tightness was a good thing because it made the fabric very closely stitched so that the stuffing doesn't show except in a few rogue places where I'd stitched too loosely.

What advice would you give someone starting this project?

If you are new to crochet (like me), watch the videos before and/or while you work! Even if the pattern looks fairly straightforward and you understand everything, if you don't watch the videos through, you may miss some of the many helpful tips that Stacey gives along the way.

Also, although you may be tempted to start doing the body before you do the wings and beak, it is nice to do those small pieces first, because if you make a mistake, it's easier to fix. And don't get discouraged if you make mistakes! I made tons of them just on the first piece (the beak)--I kept having to start over because I misunderstood the instructions or just made poor stitches. I wanted to give up because it took so long just to make a dumb-looking little beak, but I kept going because I wanted to complete the cute bird...

And one great thing is that all the individual pieces start with the very same first several steps, and most of the same techniques (sloppy slip knot, single crochet through the back loop, increasing and decreasing, etc. ) throughout, so it gives you a lot of practice with those techniques if you do the pieces in order. So when I got to the body, which I think is the most important part and takes the longest to complete, there was no more struggling---I felt very comfortable while making it, and felt great after completing the project!