August 29, 2011

Brain Sucking Octopus!!

So there are some pretty cute things on Etsy, and being creative means that what I see I can most likely make for myself in some form. One store in particular sells crocheted toys. I have no intention of starting a business, but nor do I feel like playing $8 for something I can make in half an hour. By tweaking an existing pattern for the Brain Slugs I have previously made, I can simply change the dimensions to a little more rounded shape, add a different fringe to make tentacles, and voila! Octopus!

Since the store near me does not sell safety eyes, I had to make due with a few buttons. A quick embroidery with black thread for a mouth. (FYI, I have no idea what an octopus mouth looks like...) and add a hairclip to the bottom and shes done.

My little sister in law, who is 6, really wanted to learn to crochet and sat watching while I whipped up the body. I think she expects to see this in the mail to her. We shall see...



August 8, 2011

Lovely Ladybug

My trend continues...another baby shower, another crochet toy. :)

This time it is my husband's cousin. She is having her first girl (she already has three sons!) and her theme is basically anything NOT princess-y or pink. She also mentioned that she loves ladybugs, so with that in mind I set out to find a cute and quick pattern. I saw a few that I really really liked, but they were not children friendly. Thanks to a bit more searching I found this free pattern from Michaels and Lion Brand yarn.





This pattern is very beginner friendly and great for anyone looking to jump into amigurumi. Total time for this project I estimate to be just about 3 hours. The most difficult part is sewing all the little pieces together. I started following the pattern exactly and made the upper body, head, base, feet and spots all according to the pattern. Since I wanted this to be sturdy I sewed everything to each other with the yarn tails from the pieces. I added the eyes and stitched on a mouth with red yarn. The pattern was not very specific on the antenna for the head, so I used the antenna pattern from doing brain slugs (Chain 7, three dc in second chain from needle, slip stitch into the remaining 5 chain, bind off). I tied them into the stitching before stuffing. I also sewed the spots to the upper body before stuffing and the feet onto the base before sewing them together.

Two things to note, I used the black safety eyes I had lying around, since they are so large, I thought it made the lady bug look SUPER cute. (more so than the image on the pattern anyway) Also, since I wanted it to be a girl ladybug, I decided to add a flower. I wanted to make a really small one for on her head. A quick image search led me to Mimi's Crochet Stuff blog and this pattern which I really liked since it used two colors and had a little leaf! Since it came out larger than I expected I decided to add it to the back of the ladybug and I think it came out darling. Hope they like it. Such a fun little project for a baby shower.