{"id":14590,"date":"2015-04-15T09:59:27","date_gmt":"2015-04-15T13:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/?p=14590"},"modified":"2018-01-27T11:16:53","modified_gmt":"2018-01-27T16:16:53","slug":"how-to-make-baby-amigurumi-animals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/how-to-make-baby-amigurumi-animals\/","title":{"rendered":"How to make ‘baby’ amigurumi animals"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the Baby Animals CAL in full swing in the PlanetJune Ravelry group<\/a>, I thought I’d demonstrate a couple of simple methods to convert almost* any amigurumi animal pattern into a ‘baby’ with very little effort and no pattern modifications.<\/p>\n

Method 1: Use Bigger Eyes<\/h2>\n

This couldn’t be simpler: to make an individual animal automatically look cuter and more babyish, all you need to do is use proportionally larger eyes than those recommended in the pattern. This works because baby animals (and humans!) are born with very large eyes in proportion to the rest of their bodies. <\/p>\n

There are, of course, other differences (larger head, shorter limbs, larger paws, shorter muzzle, etc), but just making this one change can instantly turn an amigurumi dog<\/a> into a puppy, for example:<\/p>\n

\"how
\nDon’t you want a Beagle<\/a> puppy now?<\/em><\/p>\n

Method 2: Make a Mother & Baby<\/h2>\n

The other easy and effective way to make a ‘baby’ amigurumi is to crochet\u00a0two of the\u00a0same animal, and make\u00a0one much larger or smaller than the other. You can do this with no changes at all to the pattern, simply by using a heavier yarn (and correspondingly larger hook) to make a larger adult, or a finer yarn (and correspondingly smaller hook) to make a smaller baby (see my Resizing Amigurumi tutorial<\/a> for more details).<\/p>\n

\"elephant<\/a>
\nThe blue Elephant<\/a> is definitely an older sibling to the tiny baby grey ones!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"aquaami<\/a>
\nMama and baby Polar Bears<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

And here’s a gorgeous example from Amanda<\/a> from Australia (via my Ravelry group<\/a>), who made a Tuxedo AmiCat<\/a> with her own little AmiKitten:<\/p>\n

\"mama
\nAwww! Amanda’s absolutely adorable AmiCat and kitten<\/em><\/p>\n

Method 3: Do Both!<\/h2>\n

You can combine Methods 1 and 2: try using the same size eyes in both sizes of your amigurumi animal, and they’ll look even more realistically like a mama and baby! Just look at my little brown Alpaca<\/a> and see how cute he looks with his smaller body and relatively big eyes:<\/p>\n

\"alpaca
\nSame size eyes in a smaller body: definitely a baby!<\/em><\/p>\n

*Caveat<\/h2>\n

I said you can use these tips with almost<\/em> any amigurumi animal pattern for a reason: these techniques only work for animals where the baby is essentially\u00a0a miniature version of the adult.\u00a0Some animals have very different looking young: most obviously, any that go through a metamorphosis (for example, a baby butterfly is a caterpillar, not a tiny butterfly, and a baby frog is a tadpole, not a miniature frog).<\/p>\n

This also applies to birds, who turn from a bundle of fluff into a sleek-feathered adult. For example, using bigger eyes or a smaller hook\/yarn combo with my (adult) Emperor Penguin<\/a> pattern would definitely\u00a0not<\/strong> give you a Baby Emperor Penguin<\/a>!<\/p>\n

\"adult<\/a>
\nRemember, baby birds look nothing like their parents…<\/em><\/p>\n

Aside from those few exceptions, these simple techniques are the easiest way to make a ‘baby’ animal without needing a whole new pattern. Give it a try and breathe new life into your animal patterns by making cute baby versions of them, or an adorable mama-and-baby pair!<\/p>\n

(And, if you’re tempted to give it a go in the next couple of weeks, don’t forget to show off the resulting amigurumi by entering them in the PlanetJune Baby Animals crochet-along<\/a> on Ravelry!)<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\"The<\/a><\/div>\n

Loved this tutorial? I have so many more amigurumi tips and tricks to share with you!<\/p>\n

Boost your amigurumi skills<\/strong> with my latest book, The Essential Guide to Amigurumi<\/a>, your comprehensive guide to amigurumi techniques and tips.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

Do you find my tutorials helpful?<\/strong> If so, please consider making a contribution towards my time so I can continue to create clear and concise tutorials for you:<\/p>\n

make a donation<\/a><\/div>\n

Thank you so much for your support!<\/strong> Now click below for loads more crochet video and photo tutorials (and do let me know what else you’d like me to cover in future tutorials…)<\/p>\n

\"See<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the Baby Animals CAL in full swing in the PlanetJune Ravelry group, I thought I’d demonstrate a couple of simple methods to convert almost* any amigurumi animal pattern into a ‘baby’ with very little effort and no pattern modifications. Method 1: Use Bigger Eyes This couldn’t be simpler: to make an individual animal automatically […]<\/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":[2,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crochet","category-tutorials"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14590","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=14590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14590\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}