I know, I know, what do I do, just sit around making Amigurumi animals all day/night?  Yes, yes, that is exactly what I do/would like to be doing.  Well, here is the fiddler crab, one of those patterns I mentioned in the last post that aren’t in Hansi Singh’s book, quite tragically, but are for sale on her Ravelry page, quite fantastically. 

I modeled my crab on this photo of a real fiddler crab.  Turns out there are a lot of fiddler crabs out there with a lot of pizzazz, so actually it was a little bit of a challenge finding one in colors that still looked convincingly natural in yarn.

Of course, like the mantis, he came out WAY TOO BIG.  I mean, as it was, I did this guy on size 2s, and he still came out like some kind of hulking beast.  But who wants to do a toy pattern for the first time in sock yarn?  Even I shutter to think of some weird aspect of a pattern I haven’t even dreamed of that would be impossible somehow to do tiny, or to do with dpns instead of circular needles, or something.  And so I will be fated to make all these toys normal sized at least once. 

  When I had made a few legs I could see which way the wind was blowing, and as a pretext for checking out a new yarn store (The Swift Stitch in Santa Cruz) I got some blue and white and red lace weight alpaca.  I looked for tinier needles than I have, but those don’t seem to have hit the general commercial market (imagine that!)  I thought I could use the 000 needles, but you know what, they are too large (I say this with glee tinged with dread), and so I’ve ordered 0000, 00000, and 000000 needles.  I’m pretty excited, and also concerned.  If I start typing the blog in tiny sized font, someone should come help me.  The next question would be which critter should really be the first to be the tiniest of all?  The seahorse is a long time favorite pattern, and I’m always trying to make life-sized seahorse (more on that later).  However, in general I’m worried about bending these tiny needles making toys, but even a bent needle knits straight, right?  Isn’t that a Zen koan or something?