smartcakes’ Neighborhood

Suncatcher Eyes Group on Flickr

Wikipedia defines amigurumi as "the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small stuffed animals and anthropomorphic creatures."   If you Google the word "amigurumi," 837,000 links come up, and there are 196,000 images.  On Flickr there are 68,900 photos tagged with "amigurumi."  A few years ago amigurumi was a difficult-to-explain, hard-to-pronounce craft that few knew about.  Today it has exploded into a craft revolution. 

There is an amigurumi for just about anything you can imagine, and most of the patterns are available too.  How about a pig, cat, dog, bear, bunny, dog in a bear suit, pear, apple, tree, hamburger and hot dog, fish bones, robots, a skeleton, any cartoon and pop culture character you can imagine, dolls, mermaids, and of course mushrooms and snails.

I learned to crochet more than 25 years ago, long before crochet was cool.  Crochet used to be thought of as little old ladies making afghans, slippers, and scarves.  With the introduction of amigurumi, that has all changed.  Crafters have embraced amigurumi and even created micro businesses.  They sell amigurumi dolls and patterns, and there are even those who sell the materials used to make amigurumi.

Crocheting is popular again, and it's being learned by a whole new generation of crafters.  What a wonderful way to keep the art of crochet going.

I finally had a chance to add the 19 new opaque colors to the Suncatcher Eyes website.  Now the colors shown below can be ordered individually in 6mm, 7.5mm, 9mm, 10.5mm, 12mm, 15mm, 18mm, 20mm, and 24mm.  Click here to visit the opaque colors page.

Who wants to join a crochetalong to make this adorable fuzzy panda?  Join Roxycraft at Craftzine.com at this link to make your own panda.  Panda's eyes are 18mm Suncatcher Eyes in Shimmer Aqua.

These are the newest colors in the Radiance line of Suncatcher Eyes.  Only available in my Etsy shop for now.

Radiance is the newest product line by Suncatcher Eyes.  These eyes have so much radiance that they seem to glow.  Only 3 colors are available in 15mm in my Etsy shop, but many more to come.

Well, maybe not yet, but he did have this cute movie made about him:

Congratulations to the winner of the Suncatcher Eyes Treasure Chest!  Thanks so much to everyone who entered.  

There's nothing like sharing an interest with your child.  We both love photography, and my youngest also loves graffiti and trains.  This afternoon we decided to combine the two and check out the train yard