Mid-Autumn Festival: Crochet Mooncake Amigurumi (PurpJe)・中秋节: 钩针编织月饼

Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival, which we also call Zhong Qiu Jie (中秋节) or Mooncake Festival in Singapore. And the Mid-Autumn Festival is never without mooncakes, which we also call yue bing (月饼), literally "moon cake". It is traditional to give and receive mooncakes. For some of us here, it is fairly common to gift them to business contacts, clients, some colleagues, etc. as a show of gratitude and well wishes. Some people like to participate in the state-organised festival events at Chinatown, while some observe the full thing: lighting and hanging lanterns, eating mooncakes over tea while admiring the full harvest moon, an activity that apparently dates back to the Tang dynasty (618-907).

Mooncakes are a big thing during this festival, and we have a wide variety of flavours here in Singapore. The traditional baked mooncakes with lotus seed filling are always popular, especially those with double or 4 salted egg yolks. Snow skin mooncakes (冰皮月饼) are also very popular, and we have many varieties, from traditional to non-traditional. Our local variants can get quite unconventional, e.g. pandan, sesame, yam, durian, matcha, mango, passionfruit, lychee martini...just to name some. (See more examples on SethLui.com and Miss Tam Chiak.)

Crochet mooncake amigurumi. Pattern by Made by PurpJe (here).

Personally, I don't like eating mooncakes, although I like how they look, and appreciate the time, labour and skills required to make good mooncakes, especially by hand in the traditional way. A mooncake amigurumi is just the thing for those who don't like eating it. It can be consumed with the eyes, and it has no calories!

This mooncake amigurumi was made using the pattern by Made by PurpJe (pattern here). I modified sides by including fpsc stitches in an attempt to recreate the fluted sides that some mooncakes have. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out as I hoped. The look of the top in PurpJe's mooncake pattern isn't really what I'm after, but it's difficult to replicate the elaborate decorative top of real mooncakes through crochet.

My MIL's vintage traditional mooncake moulds.

Materials/Tools used:

• Pattern: Crochet Mooncake Amigurumi by Made by PurpJe (pattern here).
• Hook: 2mm Clover Amour
• Yarn: Scheepjes Catona No.383 Ginger Gold
• Cotton stuffing
• Stiff tapestry canvas (for the flat base)
• Stitch markers
• Scissors
• Yarn needle