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.