Amigurumi! (and the travails of a would-be crafter)

What, you ask, is amigurumi?

According to wikipedia, it’s “the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small stuffed animals and anthropomorphic creatures.”  Here’s  an example, from wikimedia commons.

A week ago, I came across a book at the library with very cute little animals, and spent some time earlier this week, and again last night, (re-)teaching myself crochet.  (As a small child, my favorite stuffed animal was a crocheted panda from my mom; when I was in college, my mom showed me the pattern that she had originally used, out of a women’s day magazine, and I taught myself enough crochet to make another of the menagerie for a friend.  Hence, the re-leaning.)

Here’s my practice piece — it’s a bit shadowy and hard to see what this is, but it’s basically a small basket, the last and most successful of my tries at crocheting “in the round” and getting a nice even stitch.  I think  I’m ready to try one of these little guys featured in the book I have.

But — now I’ve hit the same wall as with every time I think I’ll pick up a craft.  What, after all, would I do with one of these little stuffed animals?  The older kids are too old for it, and we have so many animals already that adding another one to the collection would be pointless.  And I’m not one to accumulate a collection of these, or of any sort of knick-knack.  (My weakness is for accumulating books, and even here we’ve got so many that I’m stuck with a one-in, one-out rule.

So what kind of craft could I do?  Lots of women create scrapbooks, but that just doesn’t do anything for me.  Some years ago I got as far as printing at least some of the pictures on the computer and putting them into photo albums, having recognized that I was never going to create a scrapbook with cute stickers and clever captions.

Knitting?  I once made an afghan (which a while back ended up in a laundry basket, and it ended up becoming the cat bed).  It was a nice project because it didn’t really require much thought, and was well-suited to TV watching.  (Though I watch much less TV now, between the twin impediments/distractions of kids and internet.)

Needlepoint:  I have a nearly-finished panda bear needlepoint project, that I started before I had kids.  The main part was an image printed onto the canvas — easy enough — but the “frame” was a pattern that had to be followed from a separate paper, and was so tedious I didn’t make it very far.  Which means that counted cross-stitch (which seems to have almost entirely replaced needlepoint) is out, too.

Sewing? Once a year, at Halloween.

I browse through the crafts and hobbies books at the library periodically.  Knitting and crocheting generally is about sweaters, or baby clothes or toys.  Heck, sewing in general seems to be about making cute dresses for little girls.

Maybe I should open up an etsy shop.  Heck, maybe that’s what the story is behind many of these etsy shops:  a desire to make something without having the creations fill up your house.

So, readers:  do you craft?