Intern's Corner: Crochet-Along Panda Party

Every other week, CRAFT’s awesome interns tell about the projects they’re building in the Craft: Labs, the trouble they’ve gotten into, and what they’ll make next.
By Lindsey North, projects intern
In September we launched a new feature: the CRAFT Crochet-Along brought to you by Lion Brand Yarn. Readers followed along online, live with Tamie Snow from Roxycraft, to crochet a cool Fuzzy Panda Amigurumi in three lessons, then entered their finished pandas in the CRAFT Crochet-Along Flickr Group for a crafty prize giveaway. Tamie’s the author of Tiny Yarn Animals, she’s extremely talented, and she created this fun pattern just for us CRAFT readers. Pretty sweet!

Download the Fuzzy Panda Amigurumi pattern in PDF format
It’s a wonderful project for someone who’s always working on the same types of knit and crochet projects. If you feel like you’re endlessly making hat after scarf after afghan after hat, you should really try it. If you already crochet, it’s a walk in the park, a lovely sunny day when the leaves are starting to turn and fall from the trees. And if you’re new to crochet, the stitches are easy to learn, and as long as you use your stitch markers you can be confident your panda will turn out just like it’s supposed to. Tamie gives row-by-row instructions the whole way.

So after I completed my little top-heavy, adorably fuzzy panda, I decided to challenge myself by trying to change the scale and making a panda party. At the moment, I’m playing around with both scale and color — here’s my original Pinkie and a larger-scale Rusty — and I encourage everyone to do the same. Have fun with this cute little ball of fluff, make it your own.
Enjoy the other Crochet-Alongs in the future. It’s a great way to make the most of the free time you may have in this busy season to do something creative and fun!
Your CRAFT intern,
Lindsey