Hooked: Chinese New Year Monkey

Happy Chinese New Year again! As an amigurumi enthusiast its become an annual tradition to pick up my crochet hook every time the Lunar New Year comes around and create Stephanie of All About Ami’s latest animal pattern.

This year was the Year of the Monkey! You can find this adorable pattern HERE.

I made some small changes to my monkey. Apart from changing his more life like colours to red and yellow/gold (traditional festive Chinese colours) I also sewed my monkey a smiley mouth and glued (instead of painted) on his rosy cheeks. This monkey pattern also had an option for adding wires to his body (so he can clip onto objects). However, I opted to just keep mine stuffed. So that his tail would not droop, I only made it shorter – at 34 rows.

As you can see, at 34 rows – even without a wire the tail is springy enough to stand on its own. The monkey is also still able to sit on its own too.

One of my favourite features of this Monkey is his banana. I almost want to make a bunch of them!

Overall, this Monkey is a great amigurumi pattern and was enjoyable to make.

He now joins the other Chinese New Year animals I have also made from Stephanie’s blog!

Have you made the Chinese New Year monkey this year as well?

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Drawn: Monkey King

 

Happy Chinese New Year!

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything to do with drawing – but I thought I’d share with you a monkey I illustrated recently.

About a month or two ago I was asked to draw the ‘Monkey King’ from a classical Chinese novel called ‘Journey to the West’. I had never heard of this story (and still don’t know much about it!) but illustrated my own version of the ‘Monkey King’ after seeing how other artists had illustrated him.

Unfortunately this illustration didn’t end up being used for the project it was intended for – so here it is on my blog – just so it doesn’t remain forever in the archives of my computer!

Happy Chinese New Year!

 

 

Happy (Almost Belated) Chinese New Year! I think I can *just* get away with saying that seeing Chinese New Year celebrations last 15 days after the first day of the new Lunar month.. 

Apologies for not blogging much in the last month or so. I was busily preparing for my community college class (which sadly ended up getting cancelled) and finishing off my assignments for a class I’ve been taking online (more on that another time). 

When all the busyness started winding down, I managed to fit in this project – All About Ami’s annual Chinese New Year amigurumi. Stephanie has written a pattern for Chinese New Year for the last 4 years. This year, as it is the Chinese Year of the Horse.. the pattern was for a horse – which you can find HERE. 

Last year was the first I tried making one Steph’s CNY patterns. I made last year’s amigurumi snake using the traditional festive Chinese colours of red and gold (which I substituted with yellow.. because it’s pretty hard to find gold yarn!). When it came to making this year’s horse, I decided to stick with the same colour scheme.

 

I’ve always been a big fan of Steph’s work (as anyone reading this blog can see… haha) but was even more so impressed with this horse pattern as it involved slightly more complex shaping methods. It was a welcome departure from the regular ball and sausage shapes of many amigurumi patterns and created a little horse that was delightfully original. 

 

Given how well this horse pattern turned out I’m keen to try and apply My Little Pony colours to it sometime. I have friends who are big fans of Rainbow Dash (but how to make that rainbow mane and tail?!), Rarity and Princess Celestia (though she is an alicorn… and a rainbow maned/tailed one at that too!) so it may well be worth a shot. 

Did you make a little horse/pony for Chinese New Year too? Do you think you’d apply My Little Pony Colours to this pattern? 

A Mention on the All About Ami blog!

 

My little Chinese New Year Snake was part of Stephanie’s All About Ami’s Crochet Corner post today! It was exciting to get a mention on my favourite amigurumi blog (my little snake is at the end of the post, hence the pink stripe across the screen shot – my attempt to make a pretty join of two images!)! Thank you Stephanie! You’ve made my day. 😀

If you’ve never checked out the All About Ami blog – you really should! If you’ve come to my blog because of the link on the All About Ami blog, welcome! I hope you enjoy reading and looking at my tiny patch of the internet.

Have a great day! 🙂

Happy Chinese New Year!

So, this is a little belated but – “Happy Chinese New Year!”

Can you believe it was about a year ago I pledged to revive this blog? Though I didn’t keep my promise for a good part of the year, eventually I came good in September when I started posted my first real amigurumi creation. Thank you to those of you who have been reading my blog. You are a significant part of why I’ve been motivated to push myself to be more consistently creative in the last six months. It might sound a bit of a dramatic claim, but it has honestly changed my life.

This year I hope to push myself further creatively, namely, picking up my illustration and painting again – consistently. Maybe even try my hand at animation again as I did back in Uni. Start an online store to create prints and objects for. Maybe even find a way to leave my current retail occupation for something creative!

Anyway, I just wanted to quickly post about another little amigurumi I made for Chinese New Year – the Year of the Snake. The pattern is from (once again!) the All About Ami blog. It’s terribly cute and made a sweet addition to the few CNY decorations we had at home.

Yesterday I took my little friend along to check out the Chinese New Year parade in the city (it was postponed to yesterday as last weekend Sydney had a thunderstorm). I managed to get a blurry snap or two of him against the lit up buildings and colourful dragons and performers!

But this shot, taken inside the Queen Victoria Building is my favourite. Something to do with all that symmetry, methinks!

Some tourists saw me taking pictures of him and found him so adorable that they asked if they could take some photos of him too. I love how crochet randomly started a conversation!

How did your hometown celebrate Chinese New Year? Has crochet ever started a random conversation for you? 🙂