Amineko

My first go with the "Amineko" (crocheted cat) pattern by Nekoyama... I think I overstuffed him a bit, and his limbs aren't as floppy as they seem like they should be. Seems the original Amineko was made with fingering weight yarn, mine was made with worsted (and I like the pattern it made across his belly).
Also, that colour scheme... what was I thinking? Brown/blue yarn with purple? Yuck. And I just couldn't win with his eyes - neither white nor black embroidery thread wanted to show up on that yarn.

It's an adorable and easy pattern though, and I'd like to try making the big Amineko in the future.

You can find the pattern for free on Nekoyama's site, but there's also an adorable book with a few other goodies for your Amineko.

Albino Night Fury

Here's my cutesified/chibi Night Fury! I was looking around for crochet patterns for Toothless from How to Train your Dragon and stumbled upon this charming pattern by Sarsel, and I had to give it a go. I decided to make mine an albino instead, not for lack of black yarn, but just because I felt like it and I'm a sucker for albino reptiles.

It's about 14 cm/5.5 in tall, and 19 cm/7.5 in from front toes to tailtip. Stuffed some plastic pellets in the butt to give it a little extra weight. I used an E hook on worsting weight yarn, very tight stitches!

I made up my own pattern for the extra wing flaps on the tail tip and butt, I'll share that at the end of this post. Decided to try safety eyes instead of felt, I painted them myself, inspired by an albino leopard gecko I had years ago. The pink highlights on the bottoms of his paws are permanent ink.

Here's the patterns for the extra fins:

Tail Flaps (make 2)

• ch 8. starting at 2nd loop from top of ch, work 1 sc, 2 hdc, 3 sc. ch 1, turn
• work 3 sc, 3 hdc, ch 2 and skip 1 st (this forms the tip of a 'spoke' in the fin). 3 hdc, 2 sc, ch 1, turn
• 2 sc, 3 hdc, ch 2 and skip 1 st. 2 hdc, 2 sc

Butt Flaps (make 2)

• ch 10. starting at 2nd loop from top of ch, work 1 sc,  hdc, 2 sc, 1 sl st. ch 1, turn
• 1 sl st, 2 sc, 4 hdc. ch 2 and skip 1 st. 1 sc, 3 hdc, 2 sc, 1 sl st.
• 1 sl st, 2 sc, 3 hdc. ch 2 and skip 1 st. 1 sc, 2 hdc, 2 sc, 1 sl st.

Hope the patterns are readable, I've never written out patterns before.