Cutie Kitty News and Amigurumi Joined Rounds!

I have great news! 

The Cutie Kitty has been chosen to be part of a pattern project!!!

I'm super excited! I'm not going to reveal what project it is until May, sorry. hehe :D

To give you a hint, I will be joining designers like Josephine of AMorningCupofJo, Amy of LittleMuggles, Sarsel, Emi of EnnaDesign's, and Shannen of Sweetn'CuteCreations! If you've figured it out, shhh! don't tell!

I feel really honored to be a part of this project! I've contacted a few of the designers and have gotten to know them better. Josephine is a super sweet person! She has gone above and beyond when helping me (a newbie) figure out how to format my pattern correctly. Check out her site, her patterns are amazing! Each one is clear, very detailed with pictures, and professional. You can tell she's put a lot of time and effort into her pattern designs. 

The Cutie Kitty pattern will be for sale before the big reveal, so keep an eye out for its availability, plus I'll keep everyone updated on its progress! 

I feel this opportunity has been the proverbial nudge-out-the-nest.

As some of you know, I've been struggling with sore and painful wrists, shoulders, and neck when crocheting too much. The demand for narwhals is high in my shop, so I can't seem to keep enough of them stocked! 

 I believe selling that pattern will help alleviate the demand. With selling any of my patterns, my hope is less duplicate crocheting and more designing!

Writing the Kitty pattern has been a stretching experience for me but a good one. It's opened my eyes to the idea that I can do this, and they will sell.

Over the weekend, Josephine promoted my FB Fan Page that led 130+ people to follow my page! I was in awe! I had several people ask for the patterns for the Cutie's, narwhals, and pony! (Thank you Josephine!)

One area of question that I ran into was the spiral vs. joined rounds argument.  I use the joined rounds in all my designs but most people do not.

I chose the picture above from a Japanese amigurumi book, so you can clearly see the seam created by the slip stitch used to join the round. This along with   the difficulty to learn are what seem to be the major causes of disdain among crocheters. I like the seam joined rounds create, some people don't. Most all stuffed animals have sewed seams so it seems logical that amigurumi would have them too. In a way, all crocheted plush has one seam somewhere, like where the arms or legs or ears attached and for round-ball shapes, the closed end could be considered a seam as well. A positive of joined rounds, which you can see in the picture, would be perfect stripes.  The stripes on the dogs' sweaters don't jog or slant and the color changes are perfect.

As for the difficulty of joined rounds, I can understand. It took time, effort and  lots of frustration before I finally figured it out. It's hard going back to working in spirals now that I have this technique perfected. I love its simplicity. Once I finish a round, which is a slip stitch and one chain, I'm done with that round. No stitch marker, no counting to make sure all the stitches are there. It's kinda like laying brick: start your row up with a chain stitch, go around, then when you come back to your first stitch, connect to it with a slip stitch, pull tight and that row is done! Easy peasy :]

I do hope to go into further detail in an upcoming post, but if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask! I'd be more than happy to help you!

Anywho, my plan is to create patterns that both spiral and joined round crocheters can use with ease along with plenty of pics to help demonstrate certain aspects of the pattern, especially confusing or difficult parts.  Along with selling my patterns, I will have free patterns available as well! This, I'm pretty excited about! I already have one in my patterns page, it's a fall pumpkin, check it out and let me know what you think! I'd love to see your finished pumpkin! 

I hope everyone has a great week! 

~Denae