A pocket-sized Pooh!

I had never crocheted before, but I love to knit – how different can they be? Answer – very different! The needles, the feel, the amount of wool taken for a project, the lingo, it was much less transferable than I hoped. 

Anyway, Mark’s birthday a couple years ago, I bought him a little Winnie the Pooh crochet kit. It seemed like a cute little project to have a go at, and, naturally, I was more than happy to sit and watch him attempt it first.

Then came the magic circle.

After watching Mark try (and try, and try) to master it, my competitive nature inevitably took over.

Who can figure that out first?

Many attempts later… we had mastered the magic circle.

And that was the beginning. With a suspicious amount of YouTube tutorials, a lot of pausing and rewinding, and a pattern that initially looked like it had been written in another language, we slowly started to figure it out.

Somehow, between the two of us, we actually managed to follow the pattern.

Before long, we had two little Pooh Bears sitting in front of us — both made from the same kit, but each with their own slightly different personality.

If you’ve never tried crochet before, a little amigurumi kit like this is actually a lovely place to start.

It’s small enough that you don’t have to commit to a huge project, and there’s something very satisfying about watching a little character take shape one round at a time.

You start with a few loops and stitches that don’t look like much, and somehow you end up with an actual tiny Pooh Bear sitting in the palm of your hand.

And yes, there were mistakes. There was confusion. There were plenty of moments of “I have absolutely no idea what this means.”

But that’s part of the fun of learning something new. Eventually the stitches start making sense, your hands begin to remember what they’re supposed to do, and suddenly you’re not watching the tutorial every thirty seconds.

The finished Pooh is cute, bright and completely pocket-sized.

He’s the sort of little project that makes you smile just sitting on a shelf — or, if you’re feeling particularly attached, you could quite literally take him with you.

There was, however, one very important difference between our two Pooh Bears… The stuffing.

I was reserved. Careful. Perhaps even slightly anxious about overstuffing my little Pooh.

Mark, on the other hand, apparently had one goal: Create Pooh. Make Pooh solid. His Pooh is stuffed to a level that I can only describe as weaponised.

Mine is soft and cuddly.

Mark’s could probably knock someone out.

That pretty much sums up our first adventure into amigurumi.

Two people, one crochet kit, approximately seventeen YouTube videos, countless attempts at a magic circle… and two little Pooh Bears at the end of it.

Not bad for two people who didn’t really know what they were doing.

And honestly, that’s what I love about handmade projects. They don’t have to be perfect. Sometimes the wonky stitches, slightly different shapes and questionable stuffing decisions are what make them yours.

Plus, who doesn’t need a tiny pocket-sized Pooh?