SUPER EXCITED that my Carousel Horse pattern has made the front cover of Issue 68 of Crochet Now magazine - out this coming Thursday!
This issue is themed around Paris in Spring - with a huge selection of patterns from throws to berets to clothes and of course my lovely little Amigurumi horse - inspired by magical rides on an old fashioned Merry Go Round in the warm Paris sunshine.
Huge thanks to CN's Editor Jenny Conduit for her support of my work - this is the third pattern she has commissioned from me and she took a chance on me when I was totally unpublished - which gave me the confidence to start this website and the #lockdownamichallenge project.

Clarissa is made on a 3mm hook with Patons 100% Cotton 4 ply - which is beautiful to work with and comes in a range of delicious pastel shades. She's suitable for Intermediate crocheters with some experience of making Ami. Why not give her a go? 

This little fella came out last Friday - everyone seems to love his Sailor Hat! You can find the free pattern HERE - he's quick and easy to make with DK Cotton and a 3mm hook and the finished size is around 13cm (5in) tall and 18cm (7in) wide across his tentacles. He'd be the perfect companion for the Crab.

Happy Friday everyone! It's been a full on month with these 4 beauties emerging into the world and I've been on a steep learning curve tech wise with managing the website and a mailing list. This project has definitely been helping me to get through lockdown - it's so good to have something creative to focus on.

The Crocodile, Crab, Kitty and Elephant are all made on a 3mm hook with DK Ami Yarn from Aldi - see more about this yarn HERE.  If you're looking for an alternative yarn to use, the important thing to bear in mind is the meters by weight. So the Aldi yarn I'm using for this project has 57.5m per 25g ball. If you choose a yarn with a similar amount of metres per 25 g then you should fine that the pattern will work up to about the same size and, more importantly the proportions of the elements making up each character won't be too far out. 

If you pick a much finer yarn - so one with a lot more metres per 25g -you'll find that the body parts distort and will be very dumpy. The opposite is also true - if you pick one with far fewer metres per 25 g then your character will come out much taller.

It doesn't have to be a precise match - for instance I've worked the Bunny pattern up again using my favourite Scheepjes Catona 4ply on a 3mm hook- which works out at 62.5m per 25g, and as you can see from the picture below (the Scheepjes Bunny is on the right), it's only very slightly smaller than when made with the original yarn. So it's just something to bear in mind to ensure you get a good result.
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Whatever's on your hook, stay safe, stay well and have a lovely weekend!

Pia xx