What is Amigurumi?
"Amigurumi" is the Japanese art of crocheting small stuffed animals ("ami" means crochet and "nuigurumi" means stuffed doll). The emphasis here is definitely on achieving cuteness! And, the idea often is to attribute human features to the animal form (you'll hear references to "anthropomorphic" creatures). Amigurumi projects are usually worked in one continuous round or spiral of single crochet, to create the head and body. Typically, the head is oversized, with a cute, quirky face, and the torso and limbs are undersized. The limbs of the creature are usually crocheted separately and then attached. You might want to use a pellet-like stuffing rather than fiber to give it some heft and weight). And, it is often recommended that you use a crochet hook one size smaller than recommended for the yarn you've chosen for your project, in order to create a really tight fabric (but, if you're following an amigurumi pattern, you should follow the specific instructions given).
Amigurumi projects can be a lot of fun, especially for beginners since only the single crochet stitch is used, and the recipient is usually really tickled! A plug for me: I've got some patterns for cute sea creatures created in the amigurumi technique on my Lulu website and hope to be adding more soon! http://stores.lulu.com/manycreativegifts
