Aching finger

I think I prefer knitting to crochet. I fear that my crochet hook is really kind of uncomfortable. I probably need one of those squishy things to put on the hook...but I don't know--depends on if I decide to become a hard-core amigurumi factory.

My SnB group is having an amigurumi swap, and I am making something pretty cute. Though before I could start, the incomparable Andi had to teach us the basics of single crochet, increases, decreases, and making a circle shape. Then I picked my pattern, and started on it. But pretty soon, it started taking on a very odd shape: all steep on one end and flat on the other. Actually, it looked rather like a yarmulke. I contemplated making a yarmulke, but decided that maybe this really wasnt' the time to do that.

But this was my first attempt at crochteting the start of the amigurumi...

So I ended up ripping it out, and starting over again. Got about 5 rows in before I started getting rather sleepy, and decided to pick it up again in the morning.

As I did a few more rows in the morning, I realized I still was getting that odd half-flat shape, so I tried again, but this time used a stitch marker to keep track of where I was (I suppose my memory must be going?

It started looking a little more like a bowl, or a mini bucket hat, as evidenced in the next picture.

Then I started getting really excited and kept on going, even as I watched a rather bad "action/suspense" movie on Lifetime (it was something with Lauren Holly being a police officer and a serial killer, who was obsessed with killing the doctors who chose not to abort him, etc., etc. Quite a cop-out at the end. But anyway, the amigurumi is shaping up, and together and is looking quite neat already. As I mentioned, I have a love-hate relationship with crochet; I like that I can make amigurumi, but I hate the way that my fingers ache. Or maybe it's because I've been doing this throughout the whole day? And tomorrow, I'm going to try and not do too much amigurumi--I must do my readings for school! And class prep! Stuff like that, which is supposed to make me look all responsible and grown-up

Now as far as knitting, I've also been working on a baby hat for my friend's baby (who is going to be born in February). Anyhow, it's not a difficult pattern, but it's not well written--I think because it's originally a Norwegian pattern, and something gets kind of lost in the translation. So I've done too many increases, when there really should only be two increases per row. What a pain--I have to rip back a bunch of rows so I can set things right. I'm not in the mood to do that right now, because of the amigurumi.

But when the hat is done, it should look very cute.

Before I started the crochet amigurumi, fear struck a chord in my heart, and I decided that I should knit one small toy/amigurumi in case crochet took a while to figure out.

Behold the Kiwi!