New bison amigurumi + more catching up

It’s so nice to be able to come back to the blog after more than a month away. Although I’ve been inordinately busy at work, I haven’t been idle with crafting.

In early June, I finished a lovely, shimmery half-moon shawl using YarnArt Flowers, one of the many gradient yarn cakes in my stash. This shawl will span seasons, as it’s a cotton blend with a simple, loose stitch pattern. It was crocheted top-down using a repeat of double crochets and front post doubles, and the edge has three rows of mesh-like reinforced single crochet stitches.

It’s hard to see that there is a subtle gold thread running through the work. I love the shades of café au lait, caramel, and cappuccino.

Sometimes I need a mindless (i.e. no counting) crochet or knit project to work on. It helps me relax, and I can feel a sense of accomplishment without too much focus. The shawl pattern was certainly one of those projects, with its repeating rows, and I always try to have one like it going all the time. However, I also have a back-log of garments, homewares, and amigurumi animal ideas that I want to make, and these take much more time and attention. I took on one of the challenging amigurumi figures this month, an American bison designed by Paola at Delicious Crochet. By doing a little each day, I was able to finish this darling figure in a little less than a month.

A couple of people asked me his name, and I honestly have not settled on one yet. But he deserves to be named, don’t you think? Let me know in comments if you have an idea for one.

For this figure, I used six colors of cotton/acrylic DK weight yarn, and a 2.75mm hook – that’s a really small hook size, which made for nice, tight stitches, but was a huge challenge for my hands to make the hundreds of loop stitches that create his adorable mop. The rest of the animal was created using standard single crochets made in the round.

A final challenge came during the construction of the beast. Attaching his legs evenly was a true test of patience. Through no fault of his own, the bison is top heavy, and his profusion of hair obscures places to anchor the legs. An evening of attaching (and re-attaching) managed to get them right. A few little challenges didn’t diminish one bit the joy of this project. He’s now among my favorite amigurumi makes.

I adore this critter, not only as an icon of my homeland, but also of a specific region within it that I have not yet explored. Yellowstone is in the top 3 of my travel bucket list, and I hope to check it off soon.

Only days from now, I’ll be on my way back to the U.S. for a summer visit. I’ll check in with another craft update around that time. Meanwhile, my boy Bodhi has been my shadow more so than usual. I think he knows that something is up. It always tears my heart out to leave him, even for a day or two.