January 3, 2012

I crochet alot!

Yes, I know... alot is spelled "a lot"... but not in this case. For I am using the noun as created by Hyperbole and a Half.

My brother knows that I crochet toys for friends so I guess he figured it would be no problem to whip him up something for Christmas. So when I asked what he wanted for Christmas, he promptly said he wanted an Alot. I went about looking for patterns and stumbled onto a contest and links to a few different pattern ideas and pictures: Like this one and this one and this one and Alot of Fun by Maiya Becker. Personally I loved the Alot of Fun pattern, but it is a HUGE pattern and I have not knitted in years. So taking inspiration from that one and the rather bean shaped one I set to work.

I found a great shade of regular brown yarn and bought two skeins of the Fun Fur in brown and held both together as I crocheted. The problem with making up patterns as I go along is that I have to do it all in one or two days so I don't forget what I was doing.

The body is one large piece. I used a familiar pattern from the Brain Slugs that I worked on before and just kept expaniding a flat circle until I felt it was large enough for a body... then maintained that number of stiches to give it some depth like a hat... after I thought it might be halfway to a body and decreased and increased for a few rows to give it a kind of bean shaped body. Then I continued rows to fill out the front half of the body and then decreased to close off the tube like I had started. I now had a large furry bean shape.

The back legs are the same kind of round tube shape and are two rows shorter than the front legs so that it would kind of sit up in the front. I then made two horn shapes by starting from 10 chains and single crocheting and decreasing down to one. Two different sized eyes looking in different directions from flat circle shapes. A mouth line, made from 28 chains, turned and slip stiched back into again. And finally a flat triangle tooth.

Assembling all the parts was a pain. I had stuffed and finished off the body before I made all the other pieces so instead of the way I would normally attach things, that being by sewing them to the empty body, I instead had to try and sew them in through the stuffing. A few hours of assembly later and I had a silly looking blob monster which I had to continually explain to everyone who saw it. The highest compliment was the squeal of delight and laughter that ensued upon opening the Alot. And the comment that my mom thought I had bought it from somewhere.




I'm not sure that mine is as accurate or impressive as Maiya's but for getting it done in two days before Christmas I am proud of it. The entire thing from head to butt is about 12 inches long by about 10 inches tall.