How A 20-pattern amigurumi book Changed My Crochet Evenings

If you have ever spent an evening with a crochet hook, a ball of yarn, and a free pattern that promised an adorable little animal, you know how that story usually ends. Three rows in, the stitches do not match the photo. The head comes out lopsided. The ears look more like potato chips than anything a bunny would wear. And the whole thing goes back into the project bag with every other good intention. I have been there more times than I care to count.

I am Rosalind Brackett. I learned to crochet from my grandmother when I was nine, and after I retired from the school library in Wichita Falls, I took it back up in a serious way. Baby blankets, granny-square throws, dishcloths, hats for the hospital charity drive. I was happy with all of it. Then my oldest granddaughter asked for a little elephant, and I found out that blankets had not prepared me for animals. The first elephant I tried looked less like an elephant and more like a lumpy potato with a trunk.

A friend at the yarn circle handed me her copy of Amigurumi Friends one Tuesday night. Twenty easy patterns, the cover said, with more than a hundred possible critters when you start changing shapes, colors, details, and yarns. I flipped through all 144 pages and did not say much. I just kept turning pages. She laughed and told me to get my own. I ordered a copy that same week, the first week of March, and it has lived beside my recliner ever since.

The book came out in June 2024 from Quarry Books, and it is written in plain English, which a retired librarian can appreciate. Each pattern tells you what the piece should look like at each stage, so you catch a mistake before it becomes a disaster. After years of squinting at diagrams and guessing what the abbreviations meant, that alone won me over. I did not have to decode anything. I just read and crocheted.

My first project was the bunny. It took three evenings, mostly because I kept stopping to admire the ears and then frogging them because I wanted them perfect. My granddaughter has slept with that bunny every night since. When she asked for a second one in a different color, I did not have to hunt for a new pattern. I just changed the yarn and the details. That is when I understood what this book was really offering. It was not twenty patterns. It was a way to make any critter she could describe.

The first bunny I made from Amigurumi Friends took three evenings, and my granddaughter has slept with it every night since.

What surprised me most was how much room the book leaves for your own ideas. The same basic bear pattern can become a mouse if you change the ears, a puppy if you change the snout, a whole different animal if you switch the yarn or the color. I have made that bear four times now, and each one came out looking like a different creature. My granddaughter has started requesting combinations, which is the highest compliment a pattern book can get. She asked for a bunny with bear ears last week, and I knew exactly how to do it.

Now for the honest part, because every review should have one. The small parts are fiddly, and my right thumb has some arthritis, so I take breaks and use a lighter hook than I do for blankets. I also had to look up the magic ring again, because it had been a while, and a couple of the details call for patience more than skill. None of it is beyond a confident beginner, but you should not expect to finish a critter in one sitting the first time. Set aside a few evenings and enjoy the process.

The book itself weighs 10.4 ounces, so it rests easy on the arm of my recliner, and at 8.53 by 10.78 inches it fits on the side table beside my floor lamp. Pickles, my seven-year-old orange tabby, still thinks every loose yarn tail is a toy, so the book lives on the table, not on my lap when I set it down. It has become part of the evening rhythm: lamp on, hook in hand, cat settled, one more row of a little ear. Some nights I only get one ear done. That is fine.

I have also started using the book for charity. The hospital drive collects hats, but a few of the volunteers asked if I could make small animals for the children's wing. Amigurumi Friends made that easy, because I can work one pattern and change the colors to suit each child. It is a small thing, but the look on a child's face when you hand them a critter that fits in their palm is worth every fiddly ear.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you are thinking about trying amigurumi for the first time, or if you have tried free patterns and given up, I would tell you this. Start with one pattern from Amigurumi Friends and follow it exactly before you start changing things. Use a yarn you already like, not the cheapest thing on the shelf. And do not judge your first critter against the photos. My first bunny had ears that did not quite match, and my granddaughter does not care. She just knows somebody made it for her. That is the whole point of this craft, and this book reminded me of it.