Amigurumi - What makes it?

[luckybmr]

What makes the item a Amigurumi? Is it the big head? Is it the small size of the stuffed item? What makes an item an Amigurumi instead of just a small stuff animal, mushroom, or doll?

[StitchinCindi]

Good question. I just thought they were the same thing, only different language?

[cupcake]

beats me! I refuse to use the term on principle

To me they are stuffed crocheted toys.

I think it is sort of like using the word hoover to mean vacume cleaner???

It probably means "crochet toy" in Japanese?? Someone out there must know.


edit: OK googled it: http://www.crochetme.com/amigurumi

this explains it pretty much as I said.

[sakurasaku]

This is what the crochetme site says:

------
Amigurumi means "knitted or crocheted doll" in Japanese
------
Well, yes and no. I'm Japanese, so please allow me to expand on their explanation.

A regular stuffed toy is called "nuigurumi". It is a compound word composed of "nuu" (meaning "to sew") and "kurumu" (meaning "to wrap, to encase [in fabric, paper, etc.]"), conjugated to follow the rules of creating compound words.

Instead of sewing pieces of fabric together to make a stuffed toy, what we are doing is knitting or crocheting, the verm form of which is "amu", to make the outer shell. Hence "amu" replaces "nuu" and makes the word "amigurumi".

I think it's a fairly recently invented word. If you tell a non-crafty Japanese person about your latest "amigurumi" project, they might or might not guess what it is. They have mostl likely not have heard the term before. I'm actually surprised how common the word has become in the English-speaking knitting and crocheting communities.

In short, it just means "knitted or crocheted stuffed toy"

[luckybmr]

Thank you all for the information. Just one of those things my brain needed to know. I think Amigurumi is such a neat word, but now I know that any stuffed toy I make is considered amigurumi. However, I think I will just stick to the cute little ones I keeps seeing and start my own little collection.

Thanks for the answers and Happy Crocheting!

[vigilant20]

I have read that there are some rules for it to be considered amigurami. Like being crocheted in single crochets. Being a smaller item. Having the anime-ish large head and eyes. How much of that is true I don't know...but it does seem to be the theme.

[vigilant20]

Here's a wikipedia entry that talks about specifics to the style: the large head, cylinder body, and tiny leggies...hehe.

[GinaLaughed]

Originally Posted by vigilant20

I have read that there are some rules for it to be considered amigurami. Like being crocheted in single crochets. Being a smaller item. Having the anime-ish large head and eyes. How much of that is true I don't know...but it does seem to be the theme.

Yeah, that's exactly what I thought too.

[sakurasaku]

I think it's one of those cases that the word "amigurumi" is associated with a particular type of knitted or crocheted stuffed item because the word is Japanese and they tend to have a certain look. Just like when you say "anime", people think of a particular type of cartoons, although the word is just a short form of "animation" (=animated cartoons) in Japanese.

I looked in the Japanese Wikipedia. Here is what they said:
-----
Amigurumi is a type of nuigurumi [see my entry above...it means "stuffed animal/toy"] that is created by knitting/crocheting from materials such as yarn.

It is unknown when amigurumi started. Knitted/crocheted dolls have been made for a long time as educational toys and infant/toddler toys, but the name was popularized in the latter half of the 1980s when it was covered in an educational program on NHK [the Japanese public broadcasting company].

Because it basically requires only a crochet hook, it is accessible and
fans have increased to such a degree that in 2001 an amigurumi exhibition was held.
------

That's it. No mention of a particular style. But check out this page for the "typical" amigurumi look (scroll down for thumbnail pictures). Aren't they cute? I think the English Wikipedia entry author considers "true" amigurumi to be of this type.

So, I think it started out signifying a certain kind (crocheted, sc, large head and cylindrical body, etc.) of crocheted stuffed toys, but there is nothing inherent in the word itself that restricts it to a particular style. As more and more diverse amigurumi fans and designers get creative, the definition is naturally widened.

Caveat: the Japanese word "amu" is used for creating a fabric from a single strand of material, whether it's knitting or crocheting. They even use the word "nitto" (=knit) to refer to either knitted or crocheted clothing. They make less distinction between the two than we do here in the US. That's why my translation above start out by saying knitting/crocheting, but at the end it only mentions a crochet hook.

[craftconnie1]

I'm from Canada and I call them Amies. Part of our country is french and this means friends. They're so cute!!!!!!