getting off track

I aimed to finish my half of the pair of scarves that I am knitting for B and me over this past weekend.  Well, I got side track when I saw these cute little amigurumi and I just had to try my hands at it - and ended up sitting in front of you-tube tutorials with my crochet hook.


I had tried to crochet before but it never really made sense to me, but after the 5th or maybe 6th view of the video I started to get the knack of crocheting in the round - I still can't do it on a straight chain yet.  It took a couple of trying and unraveling but in the end I managed to make a small ball using some scrape yarn I found lying around and some polyfil that was intended for another project (that's been long abandoned).  My first amigurumi ball has got bald spots all over the top and bottom, however, probably because I am using too big of a hook (I had a size-K on hand, so that's what I used).  I didn't want the bald spots to show, so to hide them, I looped a darker yarn around and it turned into a lion's mane!

I had no idea what I was making when I started, but turns out it was meant to be a lion:

I surfed some more on you-tube and found videos of how to make ears.  I didn't find any buttons nor beads so I used black thread to make the eyes - and ran out of thread half way through the second one.  I made another bigger ball to become the body and attached it to the bottom of the head.  Then I added a tail, and voila - Leo the Lion says GRRR!!