In 40 minutes our last class begins. Am I nervous? Nah. Am I apprehensive? 'Course not! Am I wishing I had a terrible migraine or some other excellent excuse for staying in bed all day today? Maybe a little bit...
Alright, quite a lot.
I've looked back at the questions we are required to answer in this presentation, and I am quitesure I've answered all of them in the various blog posts, except for why I have not used any print tools. Well, that's simple: There's hardly any out there! Amigurumi is very new, and while there are a few pattern books availalbe in English, you could probably count the number on both hands. There are a lot mroe in Japanese, but since I have precisely NO knowledge of how to read Japanese I can't really make much use of them. There are, however, *truckloads* of internet sites, blogs, you-name-its out there about Amigurumi. I could have cited one of my pattern books, but since it's more of a leaflet than a book, and has no real publishing information beyond the yarn company sponsoring it, it wouldn't be much good. Besides, using the internet meant I could also take a break every-so-often and have a quick game of Freecell or Spider Solitaire when the brain demanded a break.
So that's it! Here endeth the presentation, and with a bit of luck and a fair wind I've actually done it all properly. I now finish this post off at T minus 30 minutes and think longingly of the lunch provided today. Tehre may be no such thing as a free lunch, but this is close enough!
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
All done....hopefully
I was pretty sure I hadn't recorded my citations correctly, but wasn't sure what changes I needed to make. I emailed Leonie yesterday, but she's ill, poor thing, plus the Polytechnic was having computer issues, so she couldn't check my blog to tell me. I was starting to be slightly apprehensive about it (read: mad flat panic) until I checked my iGoogle page and saw Sarah had updated her blog with a couple of citations, so I googled the citation maker she used (Easybib) and had a crash course in citing websites. Phew! Thanks HEAPS, Sarah! I've now edited my blog posts and added in what I sincerely hope to be correct citations. That'll teach me to pay more attention to that part when it's discussed in class.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Oooh, I'm clever!
Last week in class we learnt about RSS Feeds, which was simpler than I expected. I was already following an Amigurumi blog (1) through this blog, but now I'm following it through my iGoogle homepage and the RSS Reader. I'm getting to be so high tech!
Ana Paula is one of the best Amigurumi designers out there. She is a South American living in New Jersey, and I have discovered that it seems a surprising number of 'Amigurumists' (my word for those who make Amigurumi) come from South America. There are a lot of blogs and web-pages from Japan, where it originated, and the USA, which is expected because the US is the crafty capital of the world, but I am really surprised at the number of Spanish speaking sites out there, most from Chile and Peru, but some from other South American countries. Most of these sites are also in English, but the bloggers first language is Spanish. I just thought that was an interesting bit of trivia.
The other thing we learnt in Thursday's class was how to make a power-point presentation, complete with imbeded video. My 14 year old son was actually (reluctantly) impressed with that. He can make power-point presentations, but doesn't know how to imbed a video. My computer geek husband, however, simply said: "Yeah? And...?" Some people are just impossible to impress, unless you are wearing sexy lingerie and nothing else!
(1) "Ana Paula's Amigurumi Patterns and Random Cuteness." Ana Paula's Amigurumi Patterns & Random Cuteness. 12 July 2009. 30 June 2009 http://amigurumipatterns.blogspot.com/.
Ana Paula is one of the best Amigurumi designers out there. She is a South American living in New Jersey, and I have discovered that it seems a surprising number of 'Amigurumists' (my word for those who make Amigurumi) come from South America. There are a lot of blogs and web-pages from Japan, where it originated, and the USA, which is expected because the US is the crafty capital of the world, but I am really surprised at the number of Spanish speaking sites out there, most from Chile and Peru, but some from other South American countries. Most of these sites are also in English, but the bloggers first language is Spanish. I just thought that was an interesting bit of trivia.
The other thing we learnt in Thursday's class was how to make a power-point presentation, complete with imbeded video. My 14 year old son was actually (reluctantly) impressed with that. He can make power-point presentations, but doesn't know how to imbed a video. My computer geek husband, however, simply said: "Yeah? And...?" Some people are just impossible to impress, unless you are wearing sexy lingerie and nothing else!
(1) "Ana Paula's Amigurumi Patterns and Random Cuteness." Ana Paula's Amigurumi Patterns & Random Cuteness. 12 July 2009. 30 June 2009 http://amigurumipatterns.blogspot.com/.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Researching
I spent quite some surfing the net yesterday, looking for more on Amigurumi. Please note, that doesn't necessarily mean I was *researching* for my course. In actual fact I was looking for more patterns to use. Sorry, Leonie...(that's my teacher). On the up side I found a few new patterns, including one of a really cute fox. However.....
I Googled 'amigurumi history' and (eventually) found this site (1), from the Japanese Wikipedia. It kind of loses something in the translation, but I think it basically says amigurumi first became popular in the 1980s and branched out from Japan in the very early 21st century, possibly as part of the whole Anime/Manga craze.
I also searched Google videos for a tutorial on Amigurumi. There are almost as many tutorials out there as there are blogs, and there are several thousand of them! Of the ones I looked at, I chose this(2) paticular video for several reasons. One reason was because it was a single video, whereas most others had two or three parts to them, all on separate videos, which could get muddling if you didn't pay attention to the order.
The second reason is because the narrator used what is called the 'magic circle'. Crochet usually starts off with a slip knot to begin, but that can leave a slight hole in amigurumi, therefore it's recommended to use the 'magic circle'. This is actually the best explanation of the 'magic circle' I have ever seen, in books OR videos. Top marks to this lady.
The third reason was because the narrator's voice was a pleasant voice to listen to. Several other videos were very annoying to listen to, either because the narrator had a grating voice in some way, or because they couldn't pronounce 'amigurumi'. It's not that difficult to say; Japanese is a phonetic language: you say what you see. And if you are trying to teach a topic it's sometimes a good idea to know what you're talking about. (Was that bit of sarcasm too much? No, I don't think so, either.)
1. "Ami Whole." Wikipedia (Japanese). 7 July 2009. 30 June 2009 http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%25E3%2581%2582%25E3%2581%25BF%25E3%2581%2590%25E3%2582%258B%25E3%2581%25BF&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=2&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%25E7%25B7%25A8%25E3%2581%25BF%25E5%258C%2585%25E3%2581%25BF%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26hs%3D1Uw.
2. "Amigurumi Cherry (H0w to)." Youtube. 7 July 2009. 7 July 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7moLuvusww.
I Googled 'amigurumi history' and (eventually) found this site (1), from the Japanese Wikipedia. It kind of loses something in the translation, but I think it basically says amigurumi first became popular in the 1980s and branched out from Japan in the very early 21st century, possibly as part of the whole Anime/Manga craze.
I also searched Google videos for a tutorial on Amigurumi. There are almost as many tutorials out there as there are blogs, and there are several thousand of them! Of the ones I looked at, I chose this(2) paticular video for several reasons. One reason was because it was a single video, whereas most others had two or three parts to them, all on separate videos, which could get muddling if you didn't pay attention to the order.
The second reason is because the narrator used what is called the 'magic circle'. Crochet usually starts off with a slip knot to begin, but that can leave a slight hole in amigurumi, therefore it's recommended to use the 'magic circle'. This is actually the best explanation of the 'magic circle' I have ever seen, in books OR videos. Top marks to this lady.
The third reason was because the narrator's voice was a pleasant voice to listen to. Several other videos were very annoying to listen to, either because the narrator had a grating voice in some way, or because they couldn't pronounce 'amigurumi'. It's not that difficult to say; Japanese is a phonetic language: you say what you see. And if you are trying to teach a topic it's sometimes a good idea to know what you're talking about. (Was that bit of sarcasm too much? No, I don't think so, either.)
1. "Ami Whole." Wikipedia (Japanese). 7 July 2009. 30 June 2009 http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%25E3%2581%2582%25E3%2581%25BF%25E3%2581%2590%25E3%2582%258B%25E3%2581%25BF&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=2&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%25E7%25B7%25A8%25E3%2581%25BF%25E5%258C%2585%25E3%2581%25BF%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26hs%3D1Uw.
2. "Amigurumi Cherry (H0w to)." Youtube. 7 July 2009. 7 July 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7moLuvusww.
Monday, June 29, 2009
So, what's it all about?
Officially, this blog is to document my research into Amigurumi (1) for my Polytechnic course on Develope and Use Information Literacy Skills, as part of my Certificate 3 in Library/Information Services. This sounds nice and posh, but it basically means I'm learning to use Web 2.0 applications, such as blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, etc, ready for when I qualify as a Library Technician. That's the sort of thing my children were born knowing, but I'm too old for that, so I have to learn it the old-fashioned way.
I don't know if there are many people in Tasmania who make Amigurumi. There are surely some out there, but I've never met anyone else who does it. 'Amigurumi' is Japanese for 'Crocheted or Knitted Animals'. They don't have to be *just* animals, though. I've made cacti, peas in pods, apples with worms and so on. The main idea is that the creation is anthropomophic (has human characteristics) and is cute. *Very* cute. *Sickeningly* cute, in some instances. Japanese seem to have two dominant preferences in a lot of things: one is Cuteness, the other is Death, preferably gory, gruesome and bloody death. I don't do the whole Death thing...
The picture with this post is one of the first amigurmui I ever made. I've actually made a few of him, but they've always been given away. I must make one for me to keep, because he's definately my favourite. A lot of the patterns I use are free patterns from various sites (Pengy was from the Lion Brand (2) site), but others I've found in various books. I've only ever given my Ami's away. I've never sold any of the critters, and certainly not the patterns, because they belong to other people.
(1) "Amigurumi." Reference.com. 25 June 2009. 29 June 2009 http://www.reference.com/browse/amigurumi.
(2) "Free Crochet Pattern 81012AD." Lion Brand Yarn. 29 June 2009. Spring 2008 http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/81012AD.html?noImages=.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
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