Kubo's Monkey

If I had my life to do over again, I would have wanted someone to tell me that you could grow up and make things for a living at a movie studio called Laika.

I've been a fan from the start. Coraline brought me on board as I was already a fan of Neil Gaiman's writing, and I even made a yellow coat for the crochet little me so we could be her for Halloween. Then Paranorman came out and won us over with its sheer quantity of details, B movie horror, and humor. I even made a comic and several posts for their #WeirdWins contests, leading to me winning four stunning posters, which I still have framed in my home. Then Boxtrolls, which I will admit I did not love as much as the other two, but still had such warm and loving characters that I had to make my own Fish, complete with box.

When Kubo and the Two Strings was announced, several people said to me "Ang, it's like they made a movie just for you." I was so excited to see it when it finally came out this month. I knew I loved it from the first few moments as the mom crawled across the beach to her son, and I started crying right then. Some people say that Pixar is making fairy tales that grown ups can enjoy, but I feel like Laika has always taken it just one step further, like they are making fairy tales for grown ups instead, that kids can also enjoy. This other way around is somehow more powerful to me, and so much more moving.

Kubo and Monkey

It was only a matter of time, then, that I would make something from Kubo, and Monkey seemed the perfect choice. I don't want to spoil it if you haven't seen it, but I loved the combo of protective, sassy, and wise that she pulled off. The dynamic between Beetle and Monkey was a joy to watch both for Kubo and the audience.

naked monkey face

I made her head, body and legs from some basic Red Heart which yarn I had on hand. The face and ears were from a leftover dusty rose color acrylic I also had in my stash. The taupe brown  of her hands is the same is Vanna's Choice from the beak of my Graboid. Finally I went out and bought one skein of Lion Brand's Wool-Ease in White-Multi, which has a little bit of shiny blue and pink something running through it. I felt it was perfect for her fur, which seemed to shine in many of the scenes.

really wanted to get her chest right

third version monkey paws

After spending a few weeks making body parts and ripping them out again, I finally got some shapes I liked. Then I remembered that Monkey has a left and right hand, and left and right foot, and that I would need to tweak the patterns to get it right. Then came stuffing and assembly, which always takes a few tries to get it all positioned right on the body. After that I added a bit of embroidery to the feet and added a little pink paint to the paws and face.

a hairless monkey!

Finally it was time to add the fur. This part took forever when I did Lion and he only had fur on part of his head and body, not everywhere! I only got about half of her body done when I ran out and needed to go buy a second skein. I spent about 15 hours just pulling the "fur" through. Then it was time to give her a hair cut. This was crucial, and I did use shorter tufts than Lion so I would have less to trim, but she still needed shaping around the face along the arms, neck and back.

looks a bit like when she was poofed by birds

She is finally done after about a month of work. Working on this just makes me appreciate how the Laika makers took the time on every puppet, every detail, just for us to take in without notice. It's amazing. Now she just needs a sword unbreakable...

Difficulty: Intermediate/Hard
Time to complete: 15 hours body, 10 hours fur
Finished Size: 13 inches from head to butt when sitting

Yes, I did write up the pattern, but not sure how I feel about sharing it yet, plus I still need to transcribe it. If there is interest, I will probably share.

Socktopus 2.0

Happy Birthday to me! This year marks about 6 consecutive years that I have been posting odd stuff on this blog. So for my own pleasure, and since I said I wanted one, I decided to revisit the very first crochet project I ever made up in my head: The Socktopus!

Looking back on that post in 2010, I have to hope that my writing has improved, as well as my crochet and photography skills. Says there that the original took me a month? Wow. That seems like a long time for something seemingly so simple. I never wrote out the pattern for original Socktopus, so this time around I gave it a little more thought and planning. Socktopus will also get a nice pdf workup and be available for purchase on my patterns page.

Firstly, I changed up the colors based on my own favorites and what I had lying around. Of course I knew the main body needed to be blue, as it's my favorite color, duh. I've got this lovely Bernat Handicrafter Cotton in Sky Blue, which I used a little bit of in The Creature. I also happen to have a lot of small amounts of other cotton yarns, mostly Sugar n' Cream brand, so I pulled them all out. An all cotton yarn toy, although perhaps a little less soft, is really easy to care for, and should look great.

Each leg is the same pattern, worked from the foot up. The foot is made in your desired sock yarn and works up to the ankle area. After that it is simply 30 rows up to the body, so you can just kind of decide how high you want your sock to go, then stop and switch to the main body color. Just as an fyi, each leg takes about 2 hours to work up and finish.

Once you have all the legs done, we join them together along the outside, so that the feet/socks face out, and then add a row to widen up to attach to the bulb head. To make this easier I took some scrap yarn and tacked the insides together and then tied up the legs to make it easier to work around.

The Head is made from the crown down to the base to meet the legs, which I then sewed to the leg join rows. Last you close off the body on the underside by joining all the open loops of the legs together. I then made a little disk and sewed it into place to keep all the stuffing in.

Once the body and legs are all stuffed and closed, it was time to add the eyes. I was a bit unsure of what to do for them, but decided to stay true to the original look. I kept the eyes closed and the happy mouth but made them much more anime/amigurumi like. I also painted on some blushies with a little pink paint, just to make it super cute.

Done and so much cuter!!

It really is amazing to see your skills grow. I hope you are inspired in the same way when you look back on your first creations, whatever they may be.

Difficulty: Easy
Time to complete: 25 hours
Finished Size: 19" tall, about 6 inches wide in the head
Socktopus, like my latest patterns, has a full pdf download. Email me if you would like to purchase a copy. Unlike the other patterns I have for free, this is the first that is not based off a copyrighted character.

Link's Hat

After working forever on those Triforce gloves, it was nice to get them done, however, I still had at least half the skein of Cascade Heritage in dark green. I also had just a little of the Madtosh Dandelion gold color as well. I was trying to think of what else to do with it, but all I kept coming back to was Link's hat to go with the Triforce gloves, so I decided to see if I had enough yarn to pull off a hat.

This yarn is really thin, super fine yarn, with a weight category of 1. I'm using an F hook, 3.75mm on it. This type of yarn is usually best for socks, hence why I liked it for gloves. That is a bit of a problem though, since there are very few hat patterns calling for such a thin yarn. So of course I would have to make it up and write it out myself. Luckily, it really isn't too tough of a shape, and I have already made that striped nightcap, which was a similar weight and shape, this one just needed to be a bit shorter.

To start, and to make it match the gloves, I did a foundation double crochet row of 108 stitches. Then for the next 5 rows, I did alternating front post and back post double crochet to get the same sort of ribbing as the wrists of the gloves.

After that I did a row of 108 sc as a transition between the ribbing and the body of the hat, which I used double crochet for, again like the gloves.

I sort of worked it by eye and trial on my own head to see how quickly the hat should taper off to the point. Once it was done, I simply added a little embellishment to the sides with a few X's, which seem to be on a lot of hats people have made. I guess it is fake stitching? On the other side I added a triforce outline, which tied nicely back into the gloves. These really take the hat from boring to interesting. These details are done in the leftovers of the gold skein from the gloves as well.

This hat should fit just about any adult, as it fits me with plenty of stretch.

Time to complete: 7 hours
Difficulty: Easy

Link's Hat Pattern
F3.5mm hook, about 250 yards Superfine 1 Yarn (Cascade Heritage)
R1. Foundation double crochet chain 100 stitches, join to first to make a loop.
R2-9. Do eight rows around of double crochet, front post back post alternating to make ribbing, join to first with slip stitch and chain two up to next rows at end of each row.
R10. Ch 1, Single crochet around (100)
R11-15. Half double crochet around (100)
R16. Hdc 9, dec* around, 10hdc to end (90)
R17-19. Hdc 90 around
R20. Hdc 8, dec* around, 10hdc to end (82)
R22-25. 82 hdc around
R26. Hdc 7, dec* around, 10 hdc to end (74)
R27-29. 74 hdc around
R30. Hdc6,dec* around, 10hdc to end (66)
R31-33. 66 hdc around
R34. Hdc5, dec* around, 10 hdc to end (58)
R35-36. 58 hdc around
R37. Hdc4, dec* around, 10hdc to end (50)
R38-39. 50 hdc around
R40. Hdc3,dec* around (41)
R41-42. 41 hdc around
R43. Hdc2, dec* (30)
R44-45. 30 hdc around
R46. Hdc1, dec* (20)
R47-48. 20 hdc around
R49. Hdc, Dec*, 2hdc to end (14)
R50-51. 14 hdc around
R52. Hdc, Dec*, 2hdc around (10)
R53-54. 10 hdc around
R55. Dec around (5) and close.

Teal Shell Set

I brought a bit of yarn on our christmas trip, with the intention to make myself a hat, to match my new coat, while there. That didn't really happen in a timely sort of way, but I got it done and was able to use it the last two days.

I bought a single skein of Red Heart Boutique Unforgettable in Dragonfly. The teal, blue, green and purple ombre colors matched my favorite teal converse, my teal hoodie and my new purple coat. I figured that would make this hat very versatile for my go-to winter wear. One note about this yarn though, it is pretty thin for a worsted weight, and is not plied, so it felts together really fast, making starting over and ripping out the yarn a pain in the butt.

The first hat I tried had intricate cables on the outside, but I thought they got lost in the color change.

The second was a more simple beanie hat, but the scale was off and it ended up being laughably small.

So after frogging this hat twice, I decided to go with the Shell Stitch hat pattern by Elise Engh of the blog Grow Creative which can be found here: http://www.growcreativeblog.com/2012/02/shell-stitch-crochet-hat-free-pattern.html. You might recognize the hat as I made it once before in gray for a friend. She gets a lot of compliments on it, so I figured it would be nice.

For the hat I used a 5.5mm hook, which is a little larger than recommended, but this yarn felts very quickly and the larger size helped it work up. I followed her pattern up to row 6, after which I added an increase row [(Inc, 4dc) around (72)] since the diameter was not yet to 7.5 inches as would fit a normal adult head. I then did another row of 72 dc around. Then I proceeded with rows 7-8 of her original pattern to create the area of shells.

I kind of wanted this to be more of a slouchy hat so I ended up doing 12 total rows of shells before starting on the brim. I switched to sc as instructed in row 13, for one row which turned out to have 78 sc around, not quite sure how that happened. To get it a little more snug, I did a decrease row [(dec, sc 4)] which took it down to 64 stitches around. Then did four more rows of sc around to widen up the brim a bit. Bound it off, and hid the ends and it was done. I'd say once I started this actual pattern it probably only took about 4 hours to make the hat.

I still had a little less than half the skein so I figured it would be enough to make a pair of gloves. Figured they should match so I adapted the shell pattern.

Teal ombré gloves: Used 5 mm hook
R1. Foundation single crochet 30 and slip stitch to first to form a circle, be sure it doesn’t twist.
R2-10. (9 rows) 30 single crochet around for cuff.
R11. chain 2, *skip 2, 5 dc in next, skip 2, dc in next*, repeat around forming shells separated by one dc, end with dc in last and slip stitch to first.
R12. chain 2, work 2dc in same space as chain, skip 2 and work dc in center dc of 5dc shell, *skip 2 and work 5dc in single dc from last round, skip 2 and work dc in center of 5dc shell*, repeat around, ending with 2dc in first chain space to complete the first shell.
R13. chain 2, *skip 2, work 5dc in next single dc from row before, skip 2, and work dc in center of 5dc shell*, repeat around, slip stitch into first.
R14-18. Repeat rows 12-13, until you have 7 rounds of shells completed from the cuff
R19. should be a row 12 repeat: where you chain 2, work 2dc in same space as chain. Follow round 12 around but chain three at the end instead of completing the shell. That will form the thumb hole.
R20-21. Repeat row 13, then 12 again to add two more rows of shells.
R22-23. Chain 1 and sc around, join to first with slip stitch.
Bind off.

Thumb hole: In order to make it more stable and obvious, I reattached my yarn to any spot on the thumb hole and worked 12 sc around the opening. It was a little tricky and I had to go through some of the chains, but work it around and join with a slip stitch to the first. I then did a second round of 12 sc around the opening, slip stitched to the first and bound off.

Hide all your ends. Done! These gloves took maybe two hours. The hat is also pretty comfy as a beanie with the brim folded up. This is now my go-to set of winter wear.

Difficulty for both is Easy.
Time to complete: Hat: 4 hours, Gloves: Two hours each

White and Blue Pyramid Hat

Something about cold weather and rain just makes me feel like making these hats! After my last one with the viking design, I still had almost a full skein of white and a bit of blue. I wanted to use them up and so I looked around at more traditional fair isle patterns that were two color.

I came across a few motifs that I liked, one more traditional and the other more modern. I patterned them out on my hat grid and ended up with the results below.

78 stitches wide, traditional (top) and modern (bottom) designs

For some reason I really liked the bottom, and thought it would look really cool fading from blue into white at the top. Parts of it also reminded me of the symbol for earth from Stargate; one of my all time favorite movies, so I've started calling this one the pyramid hat.

I got through the base and the first row of pattern and realized that having only two colors improved the stretch quite a bit. This hat was shaping up to be at least 2 inches too large on my head. I had been using the same 78 stitches around and 6mm hook as before, but I needed to make a change to get this to fit. I scrapped it and started over.

arm for scale

So I went down to a 5.5mm I hook and took it down to 72 stitches. Taking it down in width also meant I had to tweak the design to fit as well.

72 stitches wide design redo

Keeping the smaller size in mind, I made my new foundation row 66 stitches, my second sc around row increased up to 72 (10sc, inc), leading into Row 1 of 72 waistcoat stitches around setting up the new pattern.

I got a few rows in when I got side tracked from this project by the ear warmers for my sister. I was a little worried that the design wouldn't show up right and in reality my stitches tend to be wider than the grid makes it seem. Surprisingly it seemed to be going well as I got through row 11. As usual, I was getting worried about how little blue I had left at this point, but just kept going and hoped for the best as I knew less of it would be needed as I went along.

design rows finished

This design while intricate looking actually has some fairly repetitive row elements that makes it easy to follow, and since the color changes tend to be 5 stitches wide or less, there is no need to worry about carrying colors along until you get up into row 17 or so.

Can't see the seam even through it is right there!

Front side.

After I finished the design rows, it was simply a matter of following the normal close off for these hats, slowly decreasing each row. This time I tried doing an invisible decrease with the waistcoat stitch, but it doesn't work as well as with amigurumi and normal single crochet.

Finished!

Of course these hats really do look best with a pom, so I worked up a white one and added it to the crown. I really like how the design sort of fades out into the clean white top. Even the inside of this hat is pretty cool looking...

Something about the simplicity is just so refreshing. I guess thats part of why fair isle is so popular. It really is the most "knit" looking hat I have made to date. Quite a few people keep telling me to just learn to knit again already. The main factor holding me back from this is time... I know this hat took me about 8 hours to work up and that if I tried to knit it, it would be twice as long easily.

Maybe a new years resolution?

Difficulty: Intermediate
Time to complete: 8 hours

Sister Earwarmers

Sometimes I worry that I will run out of crochet projects. Inevitably, every time I start thinking that, I get a request. This time is no different.

I was sent a few images of some earwarmers by my sister, who found them cute and who assumed that I could make them "in my sleep". True, to a layperson they might look simple enough, but there were some questions I had about their construction, and images alone aren't really helpful. But she's four hours away, so it's not like I could go pick them up.

I kinda think this is knit...

Going off her picture, I tested a few stitches to see what would look the closest. Though the easiest way in crochet to get ribbing is to work in the back loops only, I knew this was not the case because when you do that you only see one loop on the surface, not the pair like you can see in her pictures. I used a 4.00mm G hook since the rows look pretty small.

stitch options, ended up using a modified version of #1

1. I first tried working alternate rows of back post single crochet and front post single crochets. This stitch forces the top of the stitch to face forward. I'm not sure I liked how the rows had a bit of space between them or how that in my swatch you can see they face different ways each row, though that would be solved by working in the round and I could then use just back post sc, which is what I ended up going with.

2. Next, I tried a free pattern by Little Monkey Crochet for a ribbed earwarmer that I thought might be similar. It uses a foundation half double crochet start with rows of half double crochet worked into the third loop created by the half double stitch. After working a few rounds in my swatch (as this doesn't work well in rows), I realized this was actually pretty close, but I didn't like the space between the rows.

3. Doing a quick internet search for crochet ribbing stitches I also tried a pattern where you alternate rows of single crochet and slip stitch, working into the back of the slip stitch to pop the top of the sc rows up to the front. These ribs looked a bit less pronounced than what I was created by the other option and had an even wider space between rows.

Now I just needed some yarn and some pretty appliqués. I went to Joann's first since they always have the best coupons and sales. After picking out a pair of cream flowers with little clear beads, I chose Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Fisherman, a light cream color, to match.

For some reason, once I had the yarn, I started working up option 3 with my G hook, and once again decided it wasn't right. Then I tried option 1 again, but this time in the round, which meant that I only used back post single crochets on each round, and this time I think I landed pretty dead on the correct look. All the v's are facing the right way and the ribs are snug right up next to each other with no space between. Although this time I thought my G hook was too small, so after pulling out my swatch, I started into the first real ear warmer with a 5.00m H hook.

Ribbed Ear Warmers
With I 5.5mm hook (after doing three, I feel like the extra stretch is needed from an I hook)
Rd 1. Foundation single crochet 80 stitches. Sl st to first, ch 1.
Rd 2-18. Back Post single crochet around each stitch. Sl st to first, ch 1.
Bind off leaving a long tail. Don't forget to use your starting tail to close the foundation row.

Thread your tail onto a yarn needle and connect the bottom of the first row of foundation single crochet and make a knot. You should still have plenty of tail left to now make the cinched area. Fold your wide band on itself a few times then sew the cinch in place going through all the folded layers. Wrap the yarn around the inside and go through your cinch a few more times to secure. Knot and hide your end.

Note: Feel free to adjust the number of stitches in the foundation row or the thickness of the band by doing less rows. It does have a good amount of stretch, but she specifically requested that it not be tight on her head. I know 80 feels loose without the gather, but once you add it, it's good.

I worked up a second one, as my brother's girlfriend also wanted one. And then I made a third to see if I could use of the rest of the yarn. So I got three bands from two skeins, with even a little left over.

Once they were finished, I then attached the appliqués. I used a bit of off white thread and a needle to tack the flowers down over the cinched area. I tried to leave the edges free while securing most of the appliqué down securely. This is because once you add the flowers on that area has next to no stretch anymore. I ended up using the smaller of the two in the package after doing the first with the rose design and it took up so much space that the stretch was significantly hampered. It still fits, but very snugly.

These are pretty cute and easy to make, but sometimes I feel like maybe just handing over the $20 bucks might be worth it. Of course if you have stuff on hand give it a go!

Difficulty: Easy
Time to compltete: Each band took about 3 hours to crochet. Then maybe another hour to finish it off, make the gather and sew the appliqué in place.

Go Vikings!

Despite my last four hats of these kind having Totoro on them, it is cool that now that I have the foundation pretty much nailed down, that I can design just about anything onto these fair isle hats.

I've still got half a skein or so of gray Cascade 220 Heathers, and had purchased new skeins of white and blue. This yarn is just so perfect for these hats. Again I used a 6mm hook this time and started with a row of 72 foundation single crochet. Next I increased up to 78 sc around. Then started into the waistcoat stitch and the design.

This pattern evolved over many different instances. I had thought to make it for my husband and have it say CHIEF, for his Norsechief roll. But he hardly ever wears hats like this, so I decided not to. Besides I had made him a totally sweet Viking helmet hat which he does sometimes wear.

Instead I decided to try out making one that I could wear to school games, since I have not made myself a Viking helmet. Plus now that I sort of work there, I thought it would be cool. And I keep toying with the idea of making a few to donate to the Marti Gras fundraising event in the spring, so this would be a good test. So here is the pattern I settled on. 

The word Viking is broken up because I wanted the cool helmet logo to be on the front center of the hat when the seam is to the back. I settled on making the hat blue background since I had the most of that color yarn. And I tried to get the decorative edging to also look like little V's.  

I used the same decrease rows from the last few hats, but switched up the colors a little so that I could make another set of the stipe detail on top.

Row 1: in blue still, *decrease, 11 stitches* (72)
Row 2: *decrease, 10 stitches* (66)
Row 3: switch to white *decrease, 9 stitches* (60)
Row 4: switch to gray *decrease, 8 stitches* (54)
Row 5: switch to white *decrease, 7 stitches* (48)
Row 6: switch to blue*decrease, 6 stitches* (42)
Row 7: *decrease, 5 stitches* (36)
Row 8: *decrease, 4 stitches* (30)
Row 9: *decrease, 3 stitches* (24)
Row 10: *decrease, 2 stitches* (18)
Row 11: *decrease, 1 stitches* (12)
Row 12: *decrease around * (6)

Weave in to close.

After closing it off I decided to add a pom to the top, as these hats usually look cuter with one. Since I had very little gray left, and I wanted to use it all up, I decided to make it a mostly gray pom with a little blue and white as well. 

done!

I still of course have a massive amount of white left now, and perhaps 1/3 skein of blue left, so I'm going to have to figure out a nice pattern to use up the rest. 

Difficulty: Intermediate

Time to Complete: 10 hours