My favorite stuffed animal designer is also an amazing craft business blogger – Abby Glassenberg of While She Naps. She is currently running a series on her blog talking to sewing/crafting people about the Pattern that changed their life! This got me thinking about what my inspiration was for getting all crafty and diving into the sewing/crafting/kids toy world with jeni ro designs. I really thought about it and it really boiled down to one book that I found at Joanns about 4 years ago.
And yes it’s not a sewing book! I remember being at Joann Fabrics with my Mom and looking at the craft book section. A super cute toy book caught my eye – it was a book of patterns for crocheted toys (also know as Amigurumi) – catch was I didn’t know how to crochet. So I grabbed the book and announced to my Mom – “You have to teach me how to crochet, because I need to make these toys!” (ok I don’t know if that is exactly what I said, but I know that is what I felt).
My Mom taught me how to crochet with a simple granny square and I took off. The first year I made a ton of toys from Amigurumi World – and Ana Paula Rimoli’s subsequent books – Amigurumi Two! and Amigurumi Toy Box. I made a crocheted toy for each of the babies in my mom’s group for their 1st birthdays – and working on those cute toys totally made me fall in love with making toys.
I still crochet toys – mainly for my kids now. I haven’t jumped into the realm of selling crocheted toys frankly because they take more time. I can sew up a toy in an evening – but it would take several evenings to crochet a decent size toy.
I have dipped my toe into designing crocheted toys – but only a tiny bit. I took Stacey Trock’s Design your own Monster Amigurumi class on Craftsy and it was fabulous. That class gave me the confidence to try and design my own toys (I made a whole slew of original monsters for my son’s 1st birthday party) – but I still prefer designing sewn toys. I will let the crochet artists out there make the amigurumi patterns for the world.
Funny how one pattern book (full of crazy cute patterns) really did launch my love of toy making. I know I am early on my journey but I am enjoying the ride so far!
All pictures in this post are amigurumi that I crocheted using patterns from Ana Paula Rimoli’s books!