I touched on this just briefly in my “Amigurumi Army“ Post, but I wanted to take another post to wax poetic a little bit more, specifically on amigurumi dinosaurs.
Growing up I loved dinosaurs. My favorite stuffed animal was a little brown triceratops. The Land Before Time movies were fan favorites (at least the older ones, there are far too many now). I found fossils fascinating. Even now I’m always down for watching a dinosaur documentary, be it about new fossils, new speculation, or even old documentaries I haven’t had a chance to see before.
So it should be no surprise that when I found out you could make amigurumi dinosaurs I was all over it. I don’t even need them, just seeing them makes me feel happy. The smaller dinosaurs don’t take all that long to make, don’t use up all that much yarn, and need a relatively small amount of stuffing. This makes them great afternoon projects. I’ve also had a lot of fun using different colored yarns and yarn color combinations to make them.
I’ve made some small triceratops and stegosauruses, and I made one large brontosaurus (shown in picture) and I have plans for more. I really want to make an ankylosaur, even if it’s going to end up being fiddly to make all the little spikes and attach them.
Even if they’re not “really” dinosaurs I’ve also made a few ammonites, and I would love to make a few nautilus to go with them, but I am having some trouble finding a pattern at a smaller size. (I’m tempted to try my hand at making a pattern of my own but I’m not that confident or adventurous when it comes to crochet just yet.) It might also be fun to try my hand at a plesiosaur or an orthocone (I think that’s what it’s called) nautiloid as well.
The one issue I have with the dinosaurs I am making is how to scale them. I don’t want them to be too big, otherwise it’s going to be difficult to store them, which is what makes the small amigurumi so nice. On the other hand if I make them too small my hand is going to be cramping from trying to make all the tiny horns, spines and limbs (for those that need to have them added to the main body), which made the brontosaur fun. I would love to make the other dinosaurs at a larger scale, but I haven’t found a pattern for them yet. I can say now that making dinosaurs is likely going to be a life long pursuit, so don’t be surprised if they pop back up again. I look forward to showing off whichever new ones I end up making!
If you also love dinosaurs and would like to know where I found the crochet dinosaur patterns I found them at the below websites:
small Amigurumi: https://clubcrochet.com/?s=dinosaur (please note that while there are a number of free patterns on this website there are some you need to pay to get access to, so please be aware!)
Brontosaurus: https://stringydingding.com/brontosaurus-dinosaur-amigurumi-free-crochet-pattern/
