Tassey A Fantirumi (Fantasy Amigurumi)

Tassey is another absolutely adorable Fantirumi (Fantasy Amigurumi) designed by Esther Emaar of Crochessie/House of Creations.  Tassey is a paid pattern (roughly $5.50 American) and is currently only available in Dutch, but the English version will be available in the next two weeks(it takes time to translate and put together).  You can find Esther’s Fantirumi patterns directly on her website at House of Creations (use Google Chrome with the Translator plugin for best results) or in her Ravelry Store, be sure to bookmark and check back for the release.

The original Tassey pattern calls for 100% cotton fingering weight yarn (click here for resources on where to find it) and a size B (2.25 mm) hook.  I haven’t bought any 100% cotton fingering weight yarn yet – mainly because I have a LOT of the Hobby Lobby I Love This Cotton that I have to use up and that works up well with a size F (3.75 mm) hook.  This makes for a slightly bigger Fantirumi than the original pattern – but it is still just as adorable!

I chose the following I Love This Cotton colors – you’ll need a full skein of each:

• Amethyst
• Cotton Candy
• Bright Citrus

There is a lot of detail in Tassey and that means a lot of crocheted pieces.

For the most part I followed the pattern exactly as it was written – but I did make some changes to the way the wings, ears and eyes were done.  My husband would tell you if you asked him that I can never follow a pattern or a recipe exactly to the letter 🙂

The first change that I made was to the wings.  I had some lovely quilting fabric in my stash and I put a layer of iron-on interfacing on the back (to help prevent it from fraying and also to add some thickness to it) and used regular #10 crochet cotton for the blanket stitch.   I was quite pleased with the result.

The next changes that I made involved how the ears were attached to the head.

I joined the ears to round 20 by single crocheting through both thicknesses of the ears and into the fabric of the face.  Now the bottom of the ear, when folded in half has 6 stitches.  I wanted to slightly gather the ear as I attached it to the head so I would work a single crochet in every other double thickness of the ear while attaching it to each single crochet of the head fabric.   By doing this, the ears were much more tightly attached to the head than if I had just sewn them in place.  Later, I did go back and take the long tail ends of the ear and did just a running stitch at the lower edge of the ear only and pulled it tight to finish gathering the lower edge of the ear.  On the wrong side of the fabric I did one long stitch and then wove the ends in and knotted the two long tails together tightly.  This provided a very strong base for the ears so they wouldn’t flop over, which sometimes happens when they are just sewn on.

The last change that I did involved the eyes.

Esther’s pattern instructed you to cut felt for the eyelids and to attach a false eyelash to the back of the felt with double-faced sticky tape.  Granted while this method gives you an incredibly lovely and realistic looking eye – I just didn’t feel it was child-safe enough, though it might just be me.

I followed the instruction in the Witchy pattern, which showed a way to create crocheted eyelids which were attached directly to the fabric of the face.  Once the eyelid was crocheted into place, on the wrong side of the fabric in the loop behind the top edge of the single crochets.  See the photo below for more details.

Using #10 cotton and a size 7 steel hook, I used the loop stitch to create the eyelashes and then cut the loops in the center to fringe them, applied a thin layer of fray check, shaped them and sewed down the eyelid – securing them with knots on the wrong side of the fabric.  This is the tutorial I used for how to do the loop stitch.  I did two loop stitches in the back of each single crochet across.  This gives you thick eyelashes.  Next time I will experiment with either thread or #30 crochet cotton.  All in all I’m not displeased with the way they look – even though the eyelashes don’t look as nice as using a false eyelash.  I used 20mm eyes and a 12 mm flocked nose from Suncatcher Craft eyes – because they have a metal washer on the back with prongs that keep them nice and tight and away from prying/picking little fingers!

So, now it’s time to do the hair and final assembly!  And here is the end result.  Meet Tassey, a Fantirumi or Fantasy Amigurumi.

Isn’t she just adorable?