Hats, Hats, Hats!

Baby hats

Rowdy Kitty

UK Girraffe

Ava's purse

Before I ever learned to make amigurumi, I made scarves and little girl purses... I remember teaching a summer camp of jr. high girls how to make little purses more than a decade ago. I don't think I'd made one since then, until now. I'm on a little mission to make as many birthday and other holiday presents as possible. It's economical and prevents furthering the ever-growing glut of "stuff" we all have in our lives.

I guess this is stuff too. But at least it's hand-made and from the heart :-).

This purse is simply double crocheted in green, with a border of magenta, then crocheted together in green again. I added simple circular flowers and a pink fleece lining so the purse's future contents don't escape out the rather large spaces between stitches!

Just for fun, I thought I'd give sweater frog a ride. Too bad, they're going to separate people.

Sweater Frog

It's been a little while, I know! I have made a few creatures since May, but somehow they never got their portraits made, and subsequently, never made it to this blog.

Here's a new design- I'll call him "Sweater Frog" because of the stripes.  I couldn't find the exact kind of frog I wanted to make online, so I created my own (for my mom, who has placed several "orders" in the last few months.) He features bug eyes made of felt, an embroidered nose and mouth, pink stripes and froggish feet.


Pattern will be posted...

Speckle Cat

 

Duck rattle

OK, so maybe I've gone a little duck crazy. This one is a smaller version, minus legs. I put a jingle bell inside to make it a rattle.

Madelynn's duck

OK, I'm still having fun with my copy of the bird I saw on Etsy. This time I switched up the colors and stripe width to make the duck for my friend Priscilla's newborn baby girl, Madelynn Claire. I also made the wings a little longer to fit her initials on one. Finally, I threw in a couple of jingle bells to turn this duck into more of a toy.

Sweater Duck

I love to look on Etsy for inspiration. One of the sellers has an adorable duck pattern for sale. I know I should have just bought the pattern, but I wanted to see if I could make him on my own, following the ample photos on her site.

I didn't start my rows in the back, so my duck's sweater looks a little funky. Also, I'm still not mastering the art of stuffing, so he's a little lumpy. The great thing about this guy is that I already had the colors on hand and he only took a few hours.

Alligator a la Vanna

I made this little guy when a friend asked if I could make an alligator for a relative's baby whose nursery was alligator-themed in lime green and navy blue. I'm about two months late... and I haven't made the back spine in navy yet, becaue I haven't bought navy yarn yet....

But I thought I'd post him because he's pretty cute as a spineless alligator. The pattern can be found in this little Lion Brand Vanna's Choice booklet.

Baby hats

I made these before Rockam was born, but for some reason never posted them.

Happy Light mobile

Next in my series of birthday gifts for my friends, the McQueens, my "Happy Light" mobile was made for Olivia Light McQueen.

I drew from several online sources for inspiration, though I didn't follow any pattern exactly. For the sun, I liked this cute one from The Chain Gang. I made my sun bigger and flatter so it could be the main "hub" of the mobile. To make stars, I followed this pattern, but made mine smaller. One star has some little beams of light and the other is a shooting star with a curly tail of half double crochet. The moon is just a little blue ball with gray cheeks :-)

Baby Toys

I have been crocheting a fair amount since Rockam was born... it just hasn't shown up on the blog! While my mom was here, I did another scarf bunny, a couple more nests, two baby hats (gotta throw some photos up of those if either will fit Rock's head) and these cute little rattles based on Ana Paula Rimoli's pattern in "Amigurumi Two!" The above rattle has jingle bells crocheted into a middle row about five stitches apart. It's supposed to be a tambourine for Stephen. He only plays with it occasionally though :-(

These two rattles were made for a friend's baby shower. They've got jingle bells inside. I learned how to do lettering from June Gilbank's Idiot's Guide to Amigurumi.

Finished hotair balloon with blue bear

I must say, my balloon turned out to be rather oblong compared with the picture in Rimoli's "Amigurumi Two!", where I got the pattern. This will eventually hang in Stephen and Baby's room, once I get some kind of hook up to hold it.

Mobile for baby brother

I've been working on another design by Ana Paula Rimoli from her "Amigurumi World 2: Toys for Me and You and Baby Too." I wanted to make something for Stephen and New Baby (due in 10 days!!) and this model was just the thing. I changed the color scheme to blues and greens and I might make a different mini critter besides the white bear that she has with it.

Stephen saw me stuffing the balloon portion of the amigurumi with polyfill and he wanted to join in the fun. The balloon and basket are completed, but I haven't made the little critter to go in the basket yet. Will post those later :)

Happy Rain

My friends have four children, each with a unique "nature-y" name. Anna Rain will be celebrating her 4th birthday tomorrow, and I wanted to make her a little gift that reflected her pretty middle moniker. This is what I came up with...

To make a happy rain mobile, I went pretty random on the cloud. I'm afraid I couldn't replicate what I did if I tried. It involved adding stitches only on the top side to get the asymetrical bumpy look. The raindrops are more cut and dry:

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Happy drop

(Note, leave a long tail in the beginning to suspend drop from cloud.)

R1: ch 2, sc 3 in second chain from hook

R2: sc 2 in each (6 sts)

R3: sc 1, 2 sc repeated three times (9 sts)

R4: sc 2, 2 sc repeated 3 times (12 sts)

R5: sc 3, 2 sc repeated 3 times (15 sts)

R6: sc 4, 2 sc repeated 3 times (18 sts)

R7: sc 5, 2 sc repeated 3 timnes (21 sts)

R8: sc 6, 2 sc repeated 3 times (24 sts)

R9: add eyes, 5 sts apart and sc 24

R10-11: sc 24, embroider mouth

R12: sc 2, dec 1 repeat 6 times (18 sts)

R13: sc 1, dec 1 repeat 6 times (12 sts)

R14: sk 1, sc 1 repeated 6 times (6 sts)

R15: sk 1, sc1 repeat 3 times, tie off.

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Rainbow hanger
(Note: Be sure to leave tails at either of each color to sew rainbow to cloud's head.)
R1: ch 15 with purple yarn
R2: turn and sl st 14
R3: sc 1, 2 sc to end with blue yarn
R4: sc 2, 2 sc to end with green yarn
R5: sc 3, 2 sc to end with yellow yarn
R6: sc 4, 2 sc to end with reddish-orange yarn

Brown Bat

I had no idea how complicated it would be to make a bat amigurumi. And, actually, the head and body were a cinch... it was the wings that got a little complicated. I knew I didn't want to spend the time trying to come up with crocheted wings, but the felt I have is rather limp. There was also the problem of attatching the wings to the body... something I should have thought about before stuffing and closing the body and attaching it to the head.

My solution: Make crocheted arms for the bat with long tails for sewing. Double up the wings and sew some green craft wire into the wings along the top edge, hiding the stitches by sewing the crocheted arms over the location of the wire. I desperately need some lessons on sewing and embroidering, as I feel my wing edges are quite messy. The wings attach to the back where the arms are and near the bottom of the wings. This was sort of an afterthought when I realized how floppy the whole thing was. I cut two little slits in the front piece of felt of each wing using very tiny and very sharp sewing scissors. In retrospect, I would have cut these before sewing the wings together. After attaching the wings to the back at the arms, I ran the remaining tail through the slits and attached the wings further down the back. It would be difficult to actually sew on the wings while still crocheting the bat's body because they run most of the length of his back, so maybe my "mistake" was actually the most logical way to put this critter together.

OK, here's my attempt at providing a pattern for the crocheted parts:
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Head
Note: R1 is actually the bat's nose rather than the top of his head.
R1: ch 2, 3 sc in second ch from hook
R2: 2 sc in each (6 sts)
R3: 2 sc in each (12 sts)
R4: sc 1, 2 sc repeated 6 times (18 sts)
R5: sc 2, 2 sc repeated 6 times (24 sts)
R6: Sew on nose and add pony bead eyes about 8 stitches apart, sc 24 (24 sts)
R7-9: sc 24
R10: sc 2, dec 1 (18 sts)
R11: sc 18
R12: sc 1, dec 1 (12 sts)
R13-14: sk 1, sc 1 until you can close it off.
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Ears (make 2)
R1: ch 5
R2: turn, skip one stitch and sc back to the beginning of the chain; tie off and leave tail for sewing ears to head.
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Body
R1: ch 2, 7 sc in second chain from hook
R2: 2 sc in each (14 st)
R3: sc 1, 2 sc, repeated 7 times (21 st)
R4-7: sc 21
R8: sc 6, dec 1, repeated 3 times (18 sts)
R9-13: sc 18
R14: sc 5, dec 1, repeated 3 times (15 sts)
R15: sc 4, dec 1, repeated 3 times (12 sts)
R16: sk 1, sc 1, repeated 6 times (6 sts) tie off, leaving tail for sewing body to head.
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Arms (make 2)
R1: ch 14
R2: turn and sl st 12 starting from the second chain from hook, then sc 1. Tie off and leave long tail for sewing wings to back.
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Wings
Draw desired wing shape on paper, then cut out and use it as a pattern to make 4 wing shapes in beige felt. If you've got any pen marks on the wings, be sure to hide those sides on the inside of your wings. Measure out two pieces of craft wire so that when they are folded in half, they are just a little shorter than the top edge of your felt wings. Use a needle and thread to sew each wire to the inside of a wing. Make sure to sew the second wire to the opposite side of the second wing... since they should be mirror images of each other.  Then sew each crocheted arm to the wings, opposite the wire side, covering any messy stitches from where you sewed the wire. Cut two small slits in each wing front about an inch below the base of the crocheted arms. Use brown embroidery floss to sew wing fronts to wing backings.
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Attaching
Consider using straight pins or safety pins to position the wings where you want them. Next, using a smaller crochet hook (like D) weave the tails into the bat's back to attach the wings. String the remaining tail through the slits you cut in the wing and attach it to a lower point on the bat's back.
Brown bat may look a little frumpy at this point, but his wings can be reshaped by gently bending the wire to the desired angle.