With the new year starting and the gift giving and making frenzy over for another year, I wanted to try something new here at Justalittlesnarky. A little background on me, I have been crocheting for years now,shall we say about 30 plus years now that is a lot of years. Dang that makes me old I think. Anyway I would say that my skill level is somewhere between intermediate and expert due to long periods of no crocheting for me.
I am going to do an ongoing series of reviews of tutorials that I find online. I’m planning to do a few a month, how it will work is I will make the project then give my thoughts on how well the project was shown in the tutorial. I hope this will inspire others to try out some of these projects. There are some really talented folks that share these projects with us.
Octopus by TJW1963 on you tube (video below review)
This was the first project that I have completed by following Teresa’s videos. I first stumbled across her videos while looking at a simple flower pattern. Over the Christmas holiday I started crocheting again for gifts that we were giving, when I saw this cute pattern I just had to make one. It was such an urgent need that i had to fill that I was willing to “frog” a badly knitted sweater that I made but never wore. It was Christmas eve and everything was closed.
The instructions are very clearly explained as she works the pattern for you. Each step is explained in detail. She makes sure that you understand everything that she is doing for each round.
Overall the pattern is simple and works up pretty quickly. It took me 3 days to make my first one. Keep in mind that it was 3 days filled with family events due to holiday’s. The only part of the whole process that was tedious was making the legs after all you have to make 8 of them, but as she points out you can make as many or as few as you want. It is all up to your creativity.
The construction of the final product was well explained as well as demonstrated as we went along. The purple one in the photo has legs that were left hollow. The smaller yellow one has chenille stems in them so that they are positional. This would not work if this item was being made for a small child.
I would give this tutorial a giant thumbs up. I feel that even someone with basic crocheting skills would be able to have a successful outcome. Teresa also has a video with left-handed instructions, which I think makes her just awesome.
At the time this was published I was unable to find a link to written instructions. I had to watch it a few times pausing to do what she was showing a few times to finish it. If I can find them i will add a link to this post.
I would love to see photos if you make one of these cute creatures. You can find me on Twitter @justalilsnarky, if you have photos to share.
Till next time, get out there and craft something.
