When I first started Madrigal Yarns I had been looking for colourful yarns that I hadn’t been able to find in local yarn stores. I would spend hours fondling the Rowan balls in Liberty, wishing they would sell more vibrant shades, particularly yellows. I decided I would just have to make my own.

A dear friend who is an avid and highly skilled crocheter encouraged me and gave me an insight into her crafting world where she delighted in making Amigurumi. I followed her adventures on Instagram and was never without awe at how clever she was (IS!) and how fabulous her creations were. Mostly she made them to give as gifts. So I was delighted to receive my Blue Whale and she has pride of place in my studio.

Olympia the Blue Whale is ready for story time. This is her favourite yarn…

I always loved crochet as a kid, and made several blankets and granny square cushions. I had always considered it a bit daggy; not because it’s a lesser technique than knitting, but because I’ve never been terribly good at it. My technique is fine, and I’m quite fast at the movement, I just find that my tension is a little erratic, and it’s never quite as perfect looking as I want it to be. So actually, I think it may be harder than knitting to actually do well.

This is a granny hexagon blanket I made with scraps last year and featured in Chapter 5. It is now the Cats bed.

You know what I also loved? POKEMON. And this is slightly embarrassing, because when they arrived in 1996 I was 25 years old and I really should have been more focused on my career and doing adulting in some form. Well you know, I did all that, but also I loved my Nintendo Game Boy and I spent HOURS playing it, collecting the POKEMON pocket monsters and slaying snakes in Tomb Raider.

SO Imagine my squee when this little gem arrived on the scene a few months ago, and somehow popped into my Facebook feed, begging me to buy it.

Pocket Amigurumi is by Sabrina Somers, a very talented designer who has an impressive collection of patterns for Amigurumi at www.sabrinasomers.com. These patterns are not actual Nintendo Pokemon, but they’re something similar and just as cute. She also makes patterns for characters from popular shows and games like Super Mario, Zombies vs. Plants and the actual Nintendo Pokemon characters which will be coming in a similar book in March 2021. Mine is on order.

It was as if the heavens colluded to get me all addicted to the Gameboy again, or Nintendo switch or whatever they’re playing nowadays. I could see myself with a house overrun with little crocheted monsters and suddenly I was really really excited.

You see, I think Madrigal Yarns are perfect for these. They have the bright colours with texture and depth. Also, there are literally no rules with the colour combos you can use, and it’s the perfect way to use up leftovers. I like using up leftovers.

I ALWAYS have a stash of Madrigal Yarns at hand for those moments my brain actually starts to work….

So, What am I making?

I have decided to work my way through the book in order, because, like a finely curated album of music, I believe the author has gone to effort to present her collection.

First up, I made the Nymphaea and I called her Nancy. I used colours Diva, Island Maroon and Crimson Russet because they’re all in the purple to red spectrum and they’re bright and fun. I had to learn some new techniques for this, particularly the beginning loop, and I found that the very intense double crochet tends to make my already over used and aging hands a little sore.

Vincent doesn’t approve of early morning crochet.

I don’t think I like early morning crochet much either….

Nevertheless, I managed to follow all the instructions on this pretty easily and thankfully I had all the equipment to complete it, after I had dashed down to the local craft store (before the third lockdown while they were still open), and purchased some felt. Don’t you just hate it when you get to the end of something and all of a sudden the pattern says “now apply some gold brocading” (or something equally as obscure and unobtainable) and you’re left feeling disappointed and angry that your hours of crafting has not resulted in an EXACT replication of the image in the pattern. I think we also assume that we are as good as the person who has years of experience test knitting/crocheting, and the product photographer and stylist who have made the image in the pattern look so irresistible.

Next up I made a slightly more challenging thing that I called Cujo in colours Sotto Voce and Spruce Royale. This one actually required some wire to support a rather heavy tail. The Crochet on this was also slightly more difficult than the first one, having legs to make, which were a little fiddly. SO, a quick note about the fiddly widdly; the pattern calls for all these little monsters to be made in cotton with a 2.5mm crochet hook so they are intended to be quite small. Given I am a man with slightly larger dimensions than a Japanese girl, I decided to save myself a whole load of trauma, and scale my yarn and hook up appropriately.

But I got there! This is Cujo, he’s fierce.

Now I have started on number three, Oragi. I’m using Spring Drift to start with, and will probably complement it with Aztec Dawn. I’m excited about it because it’s yellow. Did I mention I love yellow? Crocheting with Madrigal Yarns is so lovely too. It is extremely soft to touch and the thread is really strong and the ply doesn’t separate. The yarns are expertly spun in Italy. This is a really superior product.

Looking around my studio I realize that I have been making knitted Amigurumi for years. I have knitted all manner of weird things in my time, From the Knitted Royal Wedding, to the knitted Crown Jewels. Some years ago I started knitting fruit and vegetables, because a book came out with some patters and it looked fun. I keep them in a bowl in my studio, and I was delighted some years ago when my friend Matt said “OH you need to put boggly eyes on them”… SO I did, and talk about completing the look!

The Fruit and Veg got boggly eyes because Matt said so….he was right.

So where does all this “zany” come from? It’s easy to point to Japan and when we do, it all makes sense. The Japanese have the most delightful sense of the obscure and obtuse seen through the lens of innocence and childish joy. And the design that comes with it is some of my most favourite things in life.

For example; Japanese stationery, Hello Kitty and anything Anime. The ability to fully exploit this as an artform is extraordinary and it never seems to run out of puff. I attended the Manga exhibition at the British Museum a few years ago where decades of original work was curated together for the first time outside of Japan, and I was in awe at the history of the artform, the depth of meaning and how significant it is in Japanese modern culture.

It’s very important to have the correct safety equipment when handling powdered dyes. Mine is courtesy of Hello Kitty PPA wear.

It would be easy to segue into an exploration of Japan at this stage, but I’m going to save that for another day. January is full of festivals in Japan, and picking one to write about would be too difficult. Japan has a huge calendar of regional and local festivals called matsuri and they’re all slightly quirky, and often involve dancing around semi naked and shooting arrows, bearing torches and charms or parading giant slippers. Some lovely ones include Ume Matsuri celebrating everything plum and the Sounkyo Ice Festival involving ice sculpture, frozen waterfalls and lots of fireworks.

But for now, I’m going to put some rice on and make some Sushi, and keep working on my little (or not so little) pocket monster Amigurumi.

Itadakimasu.

Eddie Knitster

The body of Nancy the Nymphaea was made in Island Maroon, for a cool summer evening.

Chapter 11. I'm making Amigurumi!