Joy is a little green ball

I woke up and felt like crocheting amigurumi. (Amigurumi: cute little crocheted figures) The internet is filled with inspiration and I have collected many patterns and inspiring pictures. I have 3 favorite places to search for crochet inspiration:  google image search, etsy and ravelry.

So before doing anything else (except chasing after Oliver) I decided to crochet a little pig. I found the free pattern here after searching on ravelry.

Now until recently I have spent most of my time doing really practical and useful things. Mostly practicing the flute (my professional training is in classical music). I guess I have always been quite ambitious (maybe that is an understatement). But a few months ago a little lightbulb went off for me and I realized that it is ok to spend time doing things that bring me joy even though those things don't have an obvious "payoff" as far as bringing me closer to some goal or another. Now to most of you this is probably pretty obvious. But it was a lesson for me. So here is my little piggy. He is neither practical nor useful. But he is really really CUTE! And I had fun making him.

He has a cute tail.

Here is the inspiration for the little green ball. I found this picture here. (after a google image search) And I used a free pattern from ravelry called ideal sphere. I will eventually make this necklace I think. Also only because it would be FUN and CUTE!

*UPDATE*  (19.11.11) I found the original source for this picture!  And it is from a really cool place!  It is from the pattern designer of some of my favorite patterns (the bird rattle on my blog ++).  I discovered her website after buying her new pattern on ravelry.  She offers the pattern for this necklace for free here:

Easy makes me happy website

She makes lots of other cool things, too.  Check out her site!