May 6, 2013

Tomorokoshi

A big congrats to Ramen Party for making their Indiegogo goal! Thanks to you too if you helped that happen! I know I am happy to have had a small part as a contributor. Tomorokoshi and I are really happy!! So here is the "pattern" to make your own Tomorokoshi (corn)!

Ingredients:
Yellow yarn
Black Yarn
12mm black safety eyes
crochet hook (4.25 mm)
embroidery needle
scrap felt in black and white

Body
Here is why I used pattern in quotes. This was so fast and organic that I did not write out what I did as I went along.

I think I chained 25, turned and sc in one loop only all the way back to the start. Then I did two sc in the end stitch to make a turn around the end of original chain to then chain 24 back down the other side of the loops. You can then continue around doing a sc in each straight sc and two sc in the corners. That should make a long oval shape. Once it is big enough that you like it, mine being about 3 inches long by about 1 inch wide, then you can just do sc around until the body from that top oval till the piece is about an inch long. Then I started decreasing to get the corn tapered shape. I did one decrease in the center of the long sides and continue around for a few more rows like normal. Then did a row with two decreases on the long sides and then continued around for another row or so. Then I did one more decrease on each long side and crocheted around once more even single crochet. This gave me the kind of corn kernel shape I wanted. I bound off leaving a long tail to sew up the bottom in the future. If it looks too short to you, keep going with decreasing and regular rows.

Face Details:
I used 12 mm black safety eyes and placed them low on the body like in the picture. Then used a little black thread to make the black line under the eyes and the eyebrows. This is why we did not stuff and sew up the body. That would make putting eyes on impossible, and the embroidery harder to do.

The mouth I made from felt pieces I had lying around. I drew the mouth shape on some paper and used it as a template for the black felt. Instead of cutting teeth out of the black shape I used white and cut teeth to glue on top of the black mouth shape. I also used white but colored it with a yellow marker to make the tongue. I glued it all down to the body, but next time I might sew it on.

A note on the limbs, be sure to leave long starting and ending tails to yarn for tying into body.

Arms:
chain 9, turn slip stitch 8 back
I tried to make fingers, but this piece over all was too small. I tried to
A) in end stitch do a tassel of two piece of black yarn, fold to make loop insert loop through end stitch, pull ends through and secure. these 4 dangles are now fingers - did not work as planned.
B) when tassels did not work, I tried just tying two long threads and then trimming the end to look like finger lengths.. looked awful, so no fingers.
Then sew the arms to the sides of the body, lower than the eyes and mouth.

Now you can stuff and sew up the bottom of the Tomorokoshi.

Legs:

chain 11 (8 leg, 2 foot plus 2 for turn)
turn, sc in next 2 chain from hook, slip stitch 8 back. bind off.
Sew them onto the bottom of the body where you sewed it closed and hide the ends inside.

DONE. My final size is about 3 inches by 3.5 inches.
Time to completion: 1 hour.
Skill: EASY PEASY!