I’ve finished working my way through the Amigurumi: Design Your Own Monster class on Craftsy. Overall the class was excellent. Even though I’m not new to amigurumi I learned a lot from this class and found it to be a lot of fun. My only complaint is that I wish it were longer. It only covered very basic shapes and shaping, I’d love a follow up class that taught some more complicated amigurumi designs.

Since I’ve made crocheted plushies before I didn’t bother to crochet along with every monster demonstrated in the course (I only have so much shelf space after all) but I had to make the final monster as he’s one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen.

I give you Mr. Toothy:

This class really inspired me and gave me the confidence to start creating my own amigurumi designs. I already have a few in the works that I can’t wait to share!

I’ve been working my way through the Amigurumi: Design Your Own Monster class on Craftsy. If you are unfamiliar with Craftsy, the site offers a large number of video classes on a variety of crafty topics. Each course provides a number of hours of video instruction as well as a discussion forum where class participants and instructors can ask questions or share ideas. I’ve bought a few courses already and can say that they have all been excellent quality and taught by very knowledgeable instructors, but so far, this amigurumi monster course has been my favourite. I find the classes a little on the expensive side, but there are regular 50% off sales, so keep a look out for one of those.

Amigurumi: Design Your Own Monster is taught by Stacey Trock, author of Crocheted Softies and Modern Baby Crochet, and the brains behind FreshStitches. Stacey is hands down one of the most delightful and entertaining video instructors I’ve seen. She has the perfect combination of quirk, humour, and knowledge, and clearly loves what she does. The aim of the course is to learn how to crochet the basic shapes used in amigurumi and how to combine them to design your own creations. Stacey demonstrates her design process from start to finish making this the only amigurumi resource I’ve found so far that covers every aspect of amigurumi creation, right from starting with a sketch to creating the finished plush.

Here’s the first little monster you make in the class (I’ve named mine Monty).

This guy is a pretty basic introduction to amigurumi intended to teach how to crochet the basic cylinder most amigurumi is based on, and a couple of different techniques for stitching together the pieces.

Watch for more monsters to come as I keep working my way through this course.