{"id":11446,"date":"2014-06-04T10:46:26","date_gmt":"2014-06-04T14:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/?p=11446"},"modified":"2014-06-04T10:46:26","modified_gmt":"2014-06-04T14:46:26","slug":"guinea-fowl-crochet-pattern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/guinea-fowl-crochet-pattern\/","title":{"rendered":"Guinea Fowl crochet pattern"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is one of those ideas that came to me on a whim and then I couldn&#8217;t possibly <strong>not<\/strong> make it! There are flocks of wild guinea fowl around Cape Town, and I see, or at least hear, them several times a week. It&#8217;s hilarious to watch a group of empty-headed guinea fowl following each other around, especially when one starts to run and they all follow, bobbing along at surprising speed!<\/p>\n<p>Guinea fowl have beautiful spotted feathers, a plump, shapely body, and a colourful featherless face &#8211; the perfect combination of eye-catching colouring and exaggerated appearance to form a bold, stylized design:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/shop\/index.php?main_page=product_info&#038;cPath=35&#038;products_id=260\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/guineafowl1.jpg\" alt=\"Guinea Fowl amigurumi crochet pattern by PlanetJune\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>Colour! Shape! Isn&#8217;t it fun?<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>Inspiration<\/h2>\n<p>I didn&#8217;t think a bird with such detailed markings would be something I could reproduce for a crochet pattern, but then I saw the colourful, stylized guinea fowl designs on ceramics by local artist <a href=\"https:\/\/draganajevtovic.com\/product-category\/royal-african\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dragana Jevtovic<\/a>. It suddenly occurred to me that I could use a similar concept in my own work, by also representing the tiny guinea fowl spots on a larger scale. With that thought, an impossibly detailed surface pattern became perfect for amigurumi. This could be the start of new explorations of colour and pattern for me; I&#8217;m so happy with the eye-catching result of this first design!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/guineafowl_feathers.jpg\" alt=\"amigurumi guinea fowl and real feathers\" \/><br \/>\n<em>I like to pick up guinea fowl feathers when I see nice ones like these; they&#8217;re too pretty to leave on the ground.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>Guinea Fowl fun facts<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Guinea fowl (aka guineafowl or guineahens) are found in the wild throughout Africa south of the Sahara desert, but they have also been domesticated.<\/li>\n<li>There are several species of guinea fowl, but the most recognisable (and the one on which  I based my design) is the helmeted guinea fowl.<\/li>\n<li>Guinea fowl make excellent farm &#8216;watchdogs&#8217;, as they squawk loudly whenever potential danger approaches, sending all the chickens running to safety!<\/li>\n<li>They eat insects and ticks as well as seed, so domestic guinea fowl are handy to keep around the garden for pest control.<\/li>\n<li>Guinea fowl can fly, but prefer to run from danger. At night, they fly up into a tree to roost.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"\/shop\/index.php?main_page=product_info&#038;cPath=35&#038;products_id=260\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/guineafowl2.jpg\" alt=\"Guinea Fowl amigurumi crochet pattern by PlanetJune\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>About this pattern<\/h2>\n<p>As well as a lovely ornamental amigurumi, a guinea fowl would make a perfect toy, with its large cuddly body, and bright colours and patterning. Don&#8217;t be intimidated by the combination of shaping and frequent colour changes &#8211; I carefully designed this pattern to have separate shaping rounds and colour changing rounds, so you never have to worry about both at once! And, when you&#8217;re making the spots, the other yarn is always carried, so there are no knots to tie and no ends to weave in. It&#8217;s surprisingly simple, and very satisfying to see the beautiful body shape come together.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/shop\/index.php?main_page=product_info&#038;cPath=35&#038;products_id=260\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/guineafowl3.jpg\" alt=\"Guinea Fowl amigurumi crochet pattern by PlanetJune\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to make a guinea fowl (or a whole flock!), you&#8217;ll find my <a href=\"\/shop\/index.php?main_page=product_info&#038;cPath=35&#038;products_id=260\">Guinea Fowl pattern<\/a> in the new <em>Birds<\/em> category of the PlanetJune shop.<\/p>\n<p>Or, if you\u2019re not ready to buy just yet, add Guinea Fowl to your queue or favourites on Ravelry, so you don\u2019t forget about it: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ravelry.com\/badges\/redirect?p=guinea-fowl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/api.ravelry.com\/badges\/projects?p=guinea-fowl&amp;t=.svg\" style=\"border: none;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I hope you&#8217;ll enjoy this design as much as I enjoyed creating it! Please let me know what you think in the comments \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is one of those ideas that came to me on a whim and then I couldn&#8217;t possibly not make it! There are flocks of wild guinea fowl around Cape Town, and I see, or at least hear, them several times a week. It&#8217;s hilarious to watch a group of empty-headed guinea fowl following each [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crochet","category-patterns"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11446\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}