Hansi Singh’s “Amigurumi Knits” – The book that started it all
About eight years ago, I found the book “Amigurumi Knits” by Hansi Singh. Singh’s tagline for her work was “knitting the peculiar” and this book lived up to it – black devil anglerfish, preying mantis, loch ness monster, jackalope.
Prior to this, I had mostly knit sweaters. Crazy, many colored sweaters, to be sure, but they had plain vanilla shaping options – cast on, knit or purl two together, bind off. Suddenly, with Singh’s patterns, I was in the land of short row knitting and kitchener grafting.
I started off with the jackalope, then moved on to a slew of Nessies, several octopuses, jellyfish, anglerfish, a hermit crab, and some starfish.
I’ve since made other designer’s toys, but when I sat down to create my first toy pattern, it was Singh’s favored techniques that I used to help make it. Like her patterns, mine favor short-row shaping, knitting in the round and the occasional kitchener grafting or fake grafting.
Thank you, Hansi Singh. I might never have designed a triceratops without you.
Note: Hansi Singh is not currently designing any new patterns, but the book is still available and you can purchase her patterns on ravelry