It’s that Zoomigurumi time of year again and now we are all the way up to number seven and if you love to crochet you might well find yourself in seventh heaven once you get your hands on a copy!

I have two designs in this volume. A clucky chicken called Cheryl and a fat cheeked hamster called Hamish and I’ve been so excited to see the finished book!

There are 13 other amigurumi buddies keeping Cheryl and Hamish company.

Are you ready for cuteness overload?! Well here goes…

So crochet hooks at the ready, which one are you going to be making first?

I’ve already made my first one (not including Hamish and Cheryl, of course) when I helped test Kristi Tullus’s Xander the Zebra pattern.

As I was doing this around Christmas time I opted for candy cane colours for my version. Kristi’s impeccably made original is in the middle. When I get me some leisure time I’m going to be having a go at a few more of the different characters from the book.

Designing Hamish was super fun. I especially liked working out how to make him a pair of cheek pouches roomy enough to keep him happy. He was going to have to have big ones because he’s a greedy little scamp and I knew they’d be brimming full of spare snacks most of the time.

It’s no trouble at all getting hamsters to eat their five a day. Strawberries, blueberries, carrots – it’s all good as far as a Hamish and his friends are concerned.

They can’t quite keep their beady eyes off the cake though.

Well, a little treat every now and again won’t do any harm. Eat up hammies, I think you suit those tubby tummies just as well as those chubby cheeks, and you never know when a bout of hibernation will be necessary. You’ll need those fat stores then!

The photo shoot for the book evidently went very well this time.

I wasn’t there, as this happens at the publishers in Belgium, but I can see that both Hamish and Cheryl behaved beautifully and struck all the poses that the photographer wanted.

Cheryl is very proud of her nest full of eggs and her smartly groomed feathers so didn’t need to be asked twice when it came to showing off her future offspring or strutting her stuff in a rather self-satisfied, perfectly preened manner.

She’s a very chatty chicken and clucks and squawks all day long. You can usually hear a cacophony of ‘tasty corn’, ‘hands off my eggs’ and ‘what fine feathers I’ve got’ – bouncing around the hen house in ear-splitting chicken speak. But be warned! When she gets together with her chooky chums things can reach a whole new level on the noise-o-meter.

There’s lots of fun to be had out of chicken coop gossip!

And I hope you’ll agree there’s lots of fun to be had out of Zoomigurumi 7 too.

If you order your paperback copy here  you’ll be able to download the PDF version straight away, so no annoying wait for the postman before you can get crocheting. And if you’re anywhere near as impatient as me that can only be a good thing!

🙂 Wishing you many hours of happy Zoomigurumi 7 menagerie making 🙂