I am making this using yarn I had in my stash as I came into the testing last minute so I didn’t want to have to wait for a yarn delivery. I had a colour scheme in mind that I really wanted to do, as my plan is to gift this cute giraffe to my friend’s nephew who is a few months old and recently had heart surgery. Anyway to keep to the colour scheme I wanted this meant double stranding some yarn, luckily I already had some yarn double stranded in a yarn cake already in the colours I needed. So this amigurumi toy is being made with Aran (worsted weight) yarn, it’s just for certain colours that I didn’t have Aran in stock I am double stranding the thin DK yarn instead which then gives me a very similar yarn thickness. The double stranded yarn is the baby blue and pure white, everything else is Aran weight cotton.
Please Note: As I used some double stranded yarn for this project it means the yarn stats included in this listing is not completely accurate. The DK yarn listed are the parts that aren’t accurate, the amount of metres/yards you see is wrong and the actual figure is half. For example the baby blue yarn is 344 metres so I actually used 172 metres. You only need to do this for the DK yarn to get accurate amounts as the aran yarn stats are all accurate. I wouldn’t ususlly use yarn like this for this project especially pattern testing but it was the only way to get the yarn I needed as I didn’t want to delay testing by ordering in the right yarn so I made it work with what I have.
I loved pattern testing for Melissa, it was a pleasure and I’ll be doing a blog post about it all ASAP. I’ve included photo of the whole progress, apologies some photos are slightly blurry/unfocused but I only included them if they were the only ones I had of that stage/area. I also apologise if you see any animsl hairs, I work hard to keep these out of photos but with several furry animals it can be really hard to eliminate especially if your bed bound like I am. My husband took the finished photo shoot photos and we tried to get photos covering all parts of the Giraffe. A short video will soon be available to watch on Instagram and my blog so you get to see a more 3D view :-).
This pattern is easy to follow and the results are great. You get a cute Giraffe just like the designer made :-). I made mine in cotton so it might look a little different but this pattern lends itself well to cotton so I can highly recommend it. When I make amigurumi I use stockings/tights to add the fibre filling (stuffing) too. This means I cut the tights to size, tie a knot on one end and turn inside out. I then put into the body/head/limbs etc and add the stuffing inside the tights/stocking. Once you are happy with your stuffed piece I tie a knot to secure, cut any excess tight material and seal/join the parts. It’s quick and easy to do :-) and it’s worth doing as it stops the stuffing from ever coming through your stitches, especially over time as your work softens from love/cuddles etc. I also like that it makes it safer for children, so lots of positive reasons to do it and it’s why I do it on all of mine unless parts are too small to do. Any questions please ask!
I followed the pattern exactly :-) and all I did was add a few extra spots. I followed the designers placement and just added a few extras to the neck, head and to one of the legs. I used all the strands I cut for the tail that the pattern mentioned, in fact I think I added an extra one or two to get a better finish to the last round. I tried to include photos of all the steps so you can see me doing them, any questions please aak as I’m happy to help should you struggle creating one yourself.
Timeline: My project shows I took 9 days however it did take me less days than this. I had a few days where I wasn’t able to work on my Giraffe so my general guide to you would be that this project can be made within a week…it all depends on much you do each day. I’d say given the days I couldn’t do or when I only managed a short session that I did make this Giraffe within 7 days. Hope this helps :-) it’s well worth the time it takes to create!