Cookie Cat

He's a frozen treat with an all new taste, cause he came to this planet from outer space.
A refuge of an inter-steller war, but now he's at your local grocery store.
Cookie Cat, he's a pet for your tummy! Cookie Cat, he's super duper yummy!
Cookie Cat, he left his family behind. Coooookie Cat!  - Cookie Cat Song

So yeah. There's that.

Do you watch Steven Universe? You should. Cartoon Network, Wednesdays (today!) at 6pm (CST). It is now on the my list of amazing new cartoons for kids and yet kind-of not-at-all for kids. (With Regular Show, Adventure Time, and Bravest Warriors, etc.)

Cookie Cat.

Cookie Cat was introduced in the very first episode, called Gem Glow. I was in love at first song. Also, an ice cream sandwich, shaped like a cat head, with half-vanilla half-strawberry filling, is something that I never knew I wanted. We are stuck boring rectangles with plain or off-brand neapolitan... So I feel for Steven when they are discontinued.

Fish shaped spaceship... awesome.

And what's with that backstory for the poor Cookie Cat? No home, no ice cream... tragedy knows no bounds. With no crochet projects on the docket, I set about to make a plushie.

Cookie Cat Pattern:

Colors needed:  (I used a 5.5 mm H hook)

Dusty pink for body and one eye. 

Black for body, ears, arms, legs, pupils and tail. 

White for the other eye. 

Gray for space suit belt. 

Orange/Copper for space buckle.

Head: crown to neck, in black 

R1. Mc (6) 

R2. Sc 2 in each sc around (12) 

R3. (Inc, sc 1)* (18) 

R4. (Inc, sc 2 )* (24) 

R5. (Inc, sc 3)* (30) 

R6. (Inc, sc 4)* (36) 

R7. (Inc, sc 5)* (42) 

R8. (Inc, sc 6)* (48) 

R9. (Inc, sc 7)* (54) 

R10-12. Sc around (54) 

R13. (dec, sc 7)* (48) 

R14. (dec, sc 6)* (42) 

R15. (dec, sc 5)* (36) 

R16. (dec, sc 4)* (30) 

R17. (dec, sc 3)* (24) 

R18. (dec, sc 2)* (18) 

Bind off leaving tail to sew to body. Stuff. 

Ears: make 2 in black 

R1: MC, work 4 sc. (4) 

R2: Sc 2 into each around (8) 

R3: (inc, sc 1)* (12) 

R4-6: 12 double crochet around. (12)

Bind off leaving tail for sewing to head. 

Body: butt to neck, in pink 

R1. Mc (6) 

R2. Sc 2 in each sc around (12) 

R3. (Inc, sc 1)* (18) 

R4. (Inc, sc 2 )* (24) 

R5. (Inc, sc 3)* (30)
R6. sc around R7. (Inc, sc 4)* (36) 

R7. sc around
R8. (Inc, sc 5)* (42)
R9-11. Sc around
R12. (dec, sc 5) (36)
R13. sc around

R14. (dec, sc 4)* (30)

R15. sc around 

R16. (dec, sc 3)* (24) 

R17. (dec, sc 2)* (18)

Bind off. No need for a tail here since head has the tail to sew together at the neck. 

Arms and Legs: in black, make 2 of each (duh). 

R1. MC5 

R2. increase around (10) 

R3-8. sc around, stop here for Legs and bind off leaving tail. Arms keep going.
R9-12. sc around for arms, bind off leaving tail.
I took two pipe cleaners and intertwined them. Then pulled them through the body at where I wanted the arms to attach at the shoulder. I then rolled the ends up and inserted them into the stuffed arms. That way they work together and have less chance of disappearing into the body. 

Bendy arm exposed with other covered.

Tail: in black

I also put in pipe cleaner in the tail along with stuffing. I did the first few rows and used the start tail to tie to a pipe cleaner I had folded in half and twisted. That way the end of the pipe cleaner would stay at the end of the tail. Then I added stuffing around it as I went along. 

R1. MC5 

R2. increase around 10 

R3-20.
Bind off leaving tail to sew to body. 

Belt: in gray 

R1. Chain 45, join to first to form a ring. 

R2-4. chain 1, 45 sc around, join to first. 

This next part makes the vertical strap. 

R4. chain 7, turn and sc 6 down, join with slip stitch at belt, turn and go up and down once more securing with a slip stitch into next stitch on belt. 

Bind off. Leave tail to sew down to body. 

Belt buckle: in orange/copper 

R1.MC4, 

R2. increase around to 8 stitches

Bind off leaving tail to sew to belt. 

Once attached sew complete belt onto body. 

Pupils: in black, make 2

Ch 4, turn and sc2 down one side, sc 2 at bottom to turn, sc 2 up the other side of starting chain. Slip stitch to first, leave tail to sew down to eyes.

Eyes: one in white, one in pink 

R1. MC6 

R2. increase around to 12 

R3. (inc, sc 1)* (18) 

R4. sc 3, 3 half double crochet, sc 6, 3 hdc, sc 3 (18)
The last row there gives it the kind of oval shape. Bind off. Leave tail to sew to head. Sew pupils to eyes, eyes to head. 

Only thing this pattern doesn't have is his bowl helmet, but maybe you can find a round globe votive candle holder to put over his head to complete the look. 

Done! Total time to completion: Roughly 5-6 hours. Nice and easy.

Now go enjoy some ice cream and think about what you are missing out on by not having a Cookie Cat ice cream sandwich to eat the ears off of.

Sushi Fish

A cousin-in-law (relationship terms are confusing...?) is graduating this month. She is going off to study at the Texas A&M Galveston where they do marine biology stuff. So, I wanted to get her a present and thought I would make her a little something silly and appropriately themed.

I've had this pattern for a Fish that turns into a sushi roll for a while now... I have no idea how I found it. Today when I went to look up the pattern, so I could get a link, I saw that the blog site it belongs to is entirely in spanish. The site is Irka! The pattern seems to be the only one on the site that is in English, but if you speak/read spanish there are a ton of adorable flower dolls on there in the Free Patterns tag.

There a few small issues I had with the pattern, maybe because of how it was translated. Also to note... I remember that "y" is "and", but had to look up "cad" which is spanish crochet abbreviation for "chain". On the body of the fish, in round 7, I think it needs to be an increase and then 4sc. And somehow at row 12 I still had 22 stitches instead of 24. Anyway I ended up doing two rounds of 22 and then immediately doing the increase row to 24 and skipping the two 24 around rows since I think I did two extra 22 rows... since it isn't super size important I figured I could fudge a little.

I used a bunch of colors that I had lying around. This is a great yarn consumption project. I had a kind of smallish ball of the orange and I was worried I would not have enough of for the fish body. Turns out that was more than enough. There were no suggestions for hook size, but since I was using all worsted weight yarns, I used my go to H/8/5.00mm hook.

So here is my finished fish. I gave it dead eyes since I stink at embroidering round eyes, and safety eyes might be too bulky to allow the transformation part. (Colors: Orange, Light Yellow, Green, Black)

dead fish :(

Once again in the sushi part, I had trouble making the bottom of the sushi roll part, but just kind of fudged to get it to be the same size square shape. Also, when I counted, both squares had 28 sts on the outside not 36... somehow I messed that all up.

Instead of making the rectangle nori wrapper, I decided to just start on the edge of the top piece and crochet it right onto it. So I did 28 stitches in back loops only to get a crisp white to green edge. Then did 6 rows of 28 around for depth. At this point I was really worried that my fish would not fit inside the sushi piece I was making...so I added another thickness row to make it 7 rows high.

unstuffed roll

Then I made sure I turned that roll part inside out and stuffed it into the fish mouth, lining up the hole and the mouth. I used the orange tail from the fish to sew the sushi opening inside the mouth. I like to when the roll is stuffed in, that the orange stitches inside the white look like teeth inside the fish maw. Plus then it just looks like a crocheted fish toy... In case you have vegan friends I guess.

*boop* boop* insert fish noises here

When the sewing is done the roll then can be pulled out and comes out right side out. Like so:

what is that fish kissing??

When the roll is stuffed with the fish you have two options: a) all in where the tail and butt look like fish, avocado and cucumber, or b) tail out for a more tempura fish roll look. Ha!

I know what I'm having for lunch today.

Time to completion: 2-3 hours. Skill level: super easy.
Final thoughts: Would make again for sure. Might do a little rewriting of the pattern for my own use, but really good pattern and so fun.

2014 Business Cards

I was out and about the other night when an old teacher of mine asked me what I was up to and mentioned that they would love to see some recent art.

Recent Art? I really do not think of myself as an artist anymore. Designer, sure. Creative crocheter? Yeah. Artist, nah.

Sure I've doodled a bit recently. And I am working on some fan art for AC:NL. But nothing frame-able. I feel lately like calling myself that would take away something from the other artists out there who continually work to improve themselves and their art.

That aside, once again I realized that I should have some personal business cards. Or at the very least carry around this custom stamp I had made with my logo and website on it... So I looked up the old art for the business cards I made up in 2010. I never had them printed and it's time for an update anyway.

The old old business card was boring and disjointed I felt. The playing card idea I still like a bit more since it at least looks cohesive on both sides. Sure, I'm not a card dealer, but I do consider the crafty things I do to be play. I am an ace (ha!) at what I do. I also like the limited color scheme of playing cards.

I updated the contact info and my name... since I've gotten married since I made these last. I tried to make it look a little like the box for cards with the patterns and dots and large symbol. I then took a few hours and reworked the playing card art to be a little more relevant and thoughtful.

I shortened my hair, colored it blue, updated my glasses shape. I also changed the outfit a bit. Before I was referencing the strange cloak-like clothes the card characters wear; now it is a layered kimono. I collect them, and love asian culture. The kimono itself has leaves (for the gardening I do) and chibi-totoros, for the obvious reason that I love them and flowers, just cause they are often on kimonos. I changed the waist sash into an obi (not too much of a stretch there). I left the lotus in my hair. I also left the bluebonnets since they are the flower of Texas. I added a wedding ring to my left hand and added a crochet hook to my array of implements in that hand. In case you can't tell those items are: a crochet hook, an art pen/marker, a pencil and a brush.

Making these cards allows me to show off my range of skills. I get to draw the design on paper, and then bring it into Illustrator to get vector lines, then into Photoshop for coloring. I also get to show off my design skills since everything is brought together in inDesign and text and embellishments are added.

So yeah, I'm thinking I will get these printed on glossy cardstock. And if it isn't too much extra, maybe I will have them die cut with rounded corners like real cards instead of the drop shadow effect. :)

UPDATE: Picture of the finished cards. I did get them die cut.

Master Yoda

"Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is." ―Yoda, to Luke Skywalker^[src]

This project came as a request/commission from a friend for her husband's birthday this year. He is a big Star Wars fan... heck, they had Darth Vader at their wedding. Yeah. 

We started off, like I do, cruising Etsy for a crochet pattern for a Star Wars character and quickly decided that Yoda was the most recognizable and the cutest in crochet. I decided to go with the pattern from Inner Child Crochet for My Friend Yoda. I chose that one because most were creating a pretty small Yoda (like 5 inches tall) and I wanted mine to be a bit larger like something you could actually play with. When he was all done, he is about 8.5 inches tall, and perfect for hugs.

The pattern was fast and simple and came with came with the full body, belt, hooded coat and a light-saber. I already had every color I needed, including a very excellent green for his skin that I found in the bottom of my bin. I had only part skeins of each color but that turned out to be more than enough. (I might make a second one for me :P)

The only changes I made were minimal. Instead of the simple black eyes they used, I used a pair of 12mm black safety eyes and affixed them before stuffing the head. Once stuffed, I first used a bit of the same green yarn to embroider a large bump with two smaller bumps to the side for a nose. Then, I used a darker green to embroidered his wrinkled brow, outline the nose and give him a grin. 

Aside from that I decided to leave off the light-saber and instead give him his cane. I did this for two reasons: The cane is his original prop from the films and I felt like it was from his time as a wise teacher, and this Yoda is a gift to a teacher... more meaningful I feel.

Since the cane was not part of the pattern, I will share what I did to make it.

Cane:

In dark brown like belt. 

Magic Circle with 5 sc.

Sc around until reach the height you like (about 15 rounds)

Then do 2 sc in each, 10 sc.

One more row of sc around. 10 sc. 

Bind off and leave a long tail. At this point I inserted a folded pipe-cleaner into the center so that if you like it can be a crooked cane, but also to keep it from curling or being floppy. Once you have your core in, fold the top in half and sew it up to make the handle. I then put it up to his actual hand and took the tail over, secured it and went back over again to make a little strap so that it can actually stay on his hand or be removed. It can also be tucked under the sleeve to give the illusion he is holding it. :)

Really, really freaking cute. I kept laughing while making it and that is always an excellent sign.
Total time to completion: 12 hours. 

Blathers the Owl

I mentioned that I was going to start work on a Blathers crochet toy back in this post from June of 2013. I posted this picture on Instagram in August of 2013. Needless to say, this has been my most ambitious crochet project ever. Period. I tried to keep this as on model as possible from his look in AC:New Leaf.

Plans and more plans.

Colors: Dark brown for body, wings, tail and eyebrows. White for eyes, wing stripe, chest plate and toenails. Light brown for face plate, inside argyle, nostrils and inside mouth. Medium brown for argyle outline, eye outline, leg bands and eyebrow dots. Dusty pink for cheeks. Bright yellow for feet and beak. Green for bow tie.

The owl in question.

I started out with the chest. I knew I wanted to make the argyle pattern on his chest in granny squares as I was working up a lot of them at that time. So I made the smallest granny square and outlined it in the proper colors of his argyle. I then also made small triangles to complete the edge pattern. I then used the tails to tie the squares and triangles into the shape of the argyle on his chest. I then had to make the white belly for under the argyle pattern. I then sewed the argyle onto the white chest plate.

Next was the green bow tie. A simple enough thing after that chest... make a rectangle of sc and use a bit of green to cinch the center. Voila, bow tie.

With that detail finished I could then approximate and create the body to go under the chest plate. The body was done in a circular fashion from the base up. Increasing as I went along to make it tall enough to accommodate the white chest piece. It also had to be wide enough since the chest piece does not wrap around the sides at all.

Sewing chest plate to body with the aid of stitch markers to hold it in place.

Once that was complete I made feet in what I hoped was a good proportion to the body.
The feet are done in yellow and were a single leg piece with a foot "bulb" at the bottom, onto which I sewed the toes which have white toenails. The legs then got brown lines embroidered onto them and were stuffed.

After the body and feet were done, I moved on to figuring out the wings. I spent at least a month on them since I kept changing the shape. I wanted them to have a bit of a swing to them rather than just be straight down to the side. So they took about three start overs to get right. Once I had one done, I had to then make 3 more since I wanted them to be a bit thick since the body was already so large and a single layer would be too tiny. One of the trickiest parts was getting those three end feather bumps just right. Three rows were dedicated to that shape, one in brown for the base of the feathers, one in white to get the stripe, and one more in brown again to finish it off. So I made 4 wings and put two together, with single crochets around the edge, for each wing to get a nice heft. I did not stuff them as I did not think it needed it.

Wing v2, this was not used but it is close. Final design had an angle to the top right side like the bottom.

After the wings... I was burnt out. This was around September of 2013. So much time and frustration had gone into it, and it was already so much larger than I had thought it might be. I put all the colors and hooks into a bag and set it aside. You can see from my posting history that I made a lot of smaller things in the mean time. Blathers sat, headless, in the shed.

It was only recently, in February of 2014, that I ran out of projects to work on. I also was out in my shed more since I like to work out there when the weather is nice. I kept seeing that bag of parts. I had a small disk that I had started that was supposed to be the head. I picked it back up from there.

This time I was a little smarter though. All those other projects helped cement in my mind how increases and decreases should be done. I also had new tricks for invisible bind offs and color changes.

So the head I only had to restart once. I got all the way through it and stuffed it only to decide it was too small for the body. Blather's head in the reference image is just as tall as his whole body and wider too. However, I did not have to start from scratch, since as I went along writing the pattern, I left stitch markers in place at certain rows. So I only had to rip out half of the head, start widening more than I had before and keep going.

I stuffed the body and head and attached them together at the neck. I wrote the head from the top down, and the body from the bottom up so that both openings at the neck had the same number of stitches so that I could simply line them up and sew them together. Once the head was on and the body complete, I sewed the legs and wings into place.

This pic does not really do justice to how large he is.

At this point he was faceless, and I was faced with another daunting set of details to work on.

So I procrastinated and made his tail. Since the wings were in place and the feet as well I could make a chain and lay it on to the backside to see how wide the tail should be. Since you can't really tell how it looks I kind of made one up that I liked and was similar to the wings and in the same way, made two tails and single crocheted them together and sewed it on the back so it peeks between the legs a tiny bit. He cannot stand, of course, but I held it up in the same position as the reference image to make sure.

A tail.

Stalling over, it was face time.
I started with the eyes. They were a simple enough shape. White circle with a row of medium brown on the edges. Black pupils that started as circles and with an extra row to make them oval.  Sew the pupils into place on the eyes and set aside.

Next I did the cheeks. In dusty pink I did a the same circle shape from the eyes without the edger row, since they look a tiny bit smaller than the eyes in the reference image.

Next was the beak and mouth. The easy way would have been to have a closed beak and make a cone shape in yellow, stuff it and then embroider a line for the mouth. But no, that was too easy to do. Instead I made an inside mouth circle about the same size as the eyes with a bright yellow center and light brown edging like the inside looks. Then I made a bottom beak piece in bright yellow and sewed it along the bottom edge of the mouth. Next I made a top beak and sewed the top half of the inside mouth up underneath and inside the top beak. So the top beak overhangs the inside mouth. That made the mouth into a shape kind of like a hand puppet (like muppet mouths). I also added one row of sc to the edge of the beak to make it smoother once it was all sewed together. I embroidered the nostrils on the outside and stuffed all the ends inside the top beak.

All along this process I kept laying out the pieces onto the blank head to make sure they fit and were to a good size. I used quite a few large stitch markers to hold them on the face in the approximate positions to see how it looked all together.

Next was what I am calling the eyebrow ridge. In the image you would think I could just do two long rectangles for the eyebrows, but I needed to also make a triangle center piece since the light brown under the whole face would be easiest to make as one giant oval. So I would need a piece to cover up the light brown face plate between the eyebrows.

I started a triangle shape from a chain that I had laid between the eyes as I had them pinned on the face. I then widened it to continue slightly laying over the curved eyes, since in the image the top of the eyes outside line goes under the brows. Once it was wide enough and tall enough, I branched off one side to make one eyebrow, complete with last row to get the three tiny feathers and then went back to the base and crocheted the second brow to match. I finished the outside edges with a row of single crochet as well. Then I had to make the dots for on the brows. I used the same outline color from the chest and did 10 small circles. I used their tails to sew and tie them down to the brows.

Once I was happy with all the bits and had them in approximate place on the face, I could create the light brown face plate to go under it all. For this step I used a piece of paper and cut out a shape that I laid over all the bits on the face. This way I could have a template to work from that I knew would fit the area. With the paper template I simply chained and increased and decreased to match my paper shape, with the exception that at the top I added some center decreases to get it to fit the curved face better. Of course, all that work is underneath the beak and eyebrow piece, so you can't see it anyway, but it makes it all fit and sew down nicer.

Face details sewn down to face plate.

Once the face plate was done, I needed to sew down all the face bits onto the face plate in the right spots. I added a little stuffing into the beak cavities and centered that down first leaving the top beak unsewn and open. Then the eyes were next. Then the cheeks since they sit over the top of the bottom of the eyes and fall outside the edge of the face plate as well. Then I tacked down the eyebrow ridge. This is why I had to leave the top of the beak open since it goes under the beak but over the eyes.

Once all the pieces are down on the face plate I took that whole thing and aligned it onto the head right. Then I used corresponding yarns to sew it onto the head. The eyebrows only got half sewed down so that the top bits came up and off like in the image.

Done.
Time to completion: ???? 100+ hours maybe. If you tried to make a new one from the pattern** I have written, maybe 50 hours? No idea.
Difficulty: Painful. Frustrating. Meticulous.
Completed Height: (Feet to Head) 18 inches
Completed Width: 11 inches

**You might have noticed I have not supplied the actual pattern for this guy. If you would like to make one of your own, email me. I will share the pattern for a nominal fee, as I put so much time into him.

With me. So you can see how large he is...

A Lowly Worm

Guess it will be baby birthday time again... I've attended several one year old parties in the past few months and have yet another baby shower on Friday.

It is another "guess the sex" party and I guess they are waiting find out what it will be. As someone who needs a plan for everything, not knowing seems so stressful to me. It also makes getting gifts really hard as nearly all baby clothes are color coded pink and blue for the gender binary. So once again I was in the store looking at the toys and thinking, why am I buying a toy when I can make perfectly good ones...

Then I starting looking at children's books and thinking about what I liked and remembered. Suddenly Richard Scarry's Lowly Worm was in my head, shortly followed by the thought that he would be super easy to crochet and away I went. I bought The Adventures of Lowly Worm to go along with the toy to round out the gift.

Note: As I do not want to get in trouble, please do not use this pattern for creation of toys for profit or sale. Make Lowly for friends, family and as gifts only.

Lowly Worm from the Busytown books by Richard Scarry

Once again I feel this would be a great yarn consumption project, I already had every color I would need: Black for details, white for the eyes, collar and shoe bottoms, brown for skin, blue for the shirt, dark green for the pants, and red for the bow ties and shoes. I also decided I would make his hat and figured I could use the same dark green from the pants and pulled a mustard yellow for the hat trim. Hook size I used is 4.25mm and I tried to stuff as I went along. Also, this is not strictly amigurumi since I am going to make the rows flat with a chain at the beginning of each row so the clothes line up right.

I decided to start at the foot and work my way up. Instead of amigurumi rounds, most of this is in rows so that the colors line up at the seams. Unless it says otherwise assume that to finish a row, you slip stitch to the first single crochet and chain one.

Shoe and Ankle
Using white
chain 9, turn and do 8 sc down the chain, 3 in starter chain to make a turn around and 8 back up the other side of the foundation chain to make flat oval shape,
2sc in next sc, 6sc, 2sc in next 3 sc (toes end of shoe), 8sc,
Switch to red yarn and attach at heel end where you stopped with the white.
1sc around in back loops only, slip stitch to first, chain 1
1sc around in both loops, slip stitch to first, chain 1,
1sc around in both loops, slip stitch to first, chain 1,

1sc around in both loops, slip stitch to first, chain 1,

bind off and then attach red yard at tip of the toe and sew top of the last row of stitches together from the toe to about a little more than half way up the shoe, make sure the top of the shoe after sewing is flat. I stuffed the shoe and then embroidered some black laces on the top of the shoe that can actually be tied :) The shoe itself is a little bit of a high top, so attach red at the place the sewing stops and add another row of single crochet around the ankle area. Try to make 12 stitches, I did it by adding one extra at the back seam of the shoe. I bound the shoe off since I wanted the leg seam at the back.

Pants

Switch to dark green

Attach at back of shoe, sc in back loops only around 12 sc, slip stitch to first, chain 1.

Do 17 rows of green, sc around in both loops again, 12 sts per row.

Shirt
Switch to blue
Change colors and do the first row of 12 sc around in the back loops only, always slip stitch to first and chain 1 to next row.
Do 15 more rows, sc around in both loops, 12 sts total per row.

Collar
Switch to white,
Change colors and do three rows sc around in both loops., 12 sts

Lowly's Bow Tie, In red
After I finished the three collar rows I took out my hook and made up the bow tie so that I could sew it into place before moving on. I find it is easier to attach things while I can tie it all inside and hide the ends in the stuffing.
Chain 5, sc across, chain 1 and turn.
Do 8 rows. Bind off. Wrap red yarn around center of rectangle to create the gathering for the bow tie. Tie the wrapped bit off and use it to sew onto the front of his collar.

Lowly's neck and head
Switch to brown and put hook back into open working loop.
Change colors and do first row of 12 sc around in back loops only
Do 5 more rows of brown 12 sc around
sc, inc,* 18
2 sc, inc,* 24
10sc, 4inc, 10sc, 28
12sc, 4inc, 12 sc, 32
sc around, 32
14sc, 4inc, 14sc, 36
Next 4 Rows: sc around, 36
sc4, dec,* 30
sc3, dec,* 24
sc2, dec,* 18 - stuff most of head here and try to stuff the rest as you close
sc1, dec,* 12
dec around till closed, bind off

Eyes Backs, make 2 in white
magic circle 6,
increase around to 12
sc, inc*, 18
Do a slip stitch into the next stitch and bind off
Then sew to head, on either side, once pupils are affixed.

Eye pupils, make 2 in black
magic circle 8, slip stitch to first sc
bind off and sew on to white backs.

Don't forget to also embroider a smile on the face, in black.

Lowly's Hat
In dark green
Magic circle 6,
increase to 12,
sc, inc, 18
sc 2, inc, 24
in back loops only, sc 24 around- at this point I did a slip stitch to the close the rounds, to go to rows, so the hat is even all around since amigurumi has uneven rows.
in both loops do 2 more rows of 24sc around.
sc, dec*, 18
sc around 18,
sc 2, inc,* 24
sc 3, inc,* 32
sc 4, inc,* 36
sc 5, inc,* 40
Now going to make the brim:
ch3, all in front loops only, tc in next 8 in front, dc in next 4, hdc in next 2, sc in next 3, hdc, dc, 2dc in one, 2dc in one, dc, hdc, sc in next 3, hdc in next 2, dc in next 4, 8tc. Should have two empty stitches left before the end of the row. Leave them empty and use the tail to sew up the brim back seam to get it to stand up. Using the front loops means there should be a clean row of loops to help it bend back up.

Hat Band and Tassel
Chain 28, slip stitch to first to form a loop. Chain 1 and sc around. Slip stitch to first and bind off leaving tail to sew down to hat.  Before you sew the band on, cut and tie a few lengths of yarn to one side and knot into place. Then fray yarn out to get the feather/tassel. Then use the tail from the band to stitch into place on the hat.

Place hat onto head, if this is for a responsible child...
For younger kids, maybe leave a long tail on the magic circle and sew onto crown of head to keep the hat with the toy but still allow it to be taken on and off. In this case, sad as it made me, I stuffed and sewed the hat on to the head so it cannot be removed.

Done! Time to completion, 5-6 hours. Skill level is easyish. Difficult bits are all the details and sewing as usual for me. Lowly is 17 inches tall from the sole of his shoe to the top of his hat.

Other thoughts: Might put a rattle toy or bell inside the stuffing of the head if looking to make it amusing to babies. Or consider making Lowly longer and tying him into a loose knot like he does in the books. Or maybe find an articulated spine, braided pipe cleaners, or use one of those wooden toy snakes that move, inside the body, instead of so much stuffing to get it to wiggle and be a bit sturdier.

Large Pineapple Doily

So, I have this really nice table I was given by my grandmother. It is hardwood of some kind. About 32 inches round, pedestal base with three legs at the bottom. The top also has a mechanism so that it can turn around like a giant lazy susan. I personally dislike it for the few facts that it does not go with my decor, by being much nicer than everything else, and that it takes up a fair amount of space. In my last move it got a bit scuffed on top from the lousy movers I hired.

In an effort to be able to use it and put stuff on it without feeling guilty, or damage it further, I decided to use my skills to make a doily for the top of it. Perhaps then I could at least use it to hold some books or something.

I looked around the internet for some free patterns. Most are of a style that date themselves to the 1940s when they were written and popular, however the "pineapple" shapes of a few were modern enough looking that I thought they would do nicely. I settled on this pattern: Large Pineapple Doily. It's repeating pattern looked intricate but not necessarily too complicated for a first time doily.

I had a large ball of white cotton thread. I think it was something like this. I also have a ton of hooks including very small ones. So I think my thread is a 10 weight and my smallest hook is a 2.25mm B/1. I figured that would do fine. The pattern, on the other hand, says to use a 30 weight (much thinner, go figure...) and a 12 stainless steel hook. I had to look it up and learned that stainless steel hooks have different classifications than the aluminum ones I have. A 12 is supposed to be 1.00mm.

Basically this means both my hook and my thread are too large. That means that my doily will probably be much larger than the 18 inches that the pattern says it should be when done. This is ok since, like I said, my table is 32 inches. I also decided to keep going since doing it in a larger size means that I can see what I am doing for this first time making a doily, which I understand can be very difficult to do right.

After only three rounds my doily was already almost 4 inches across and there are 34 rounds... I started to think maybe I should get smaller thread like recommended. However, since I am lazy and had already gotten several rounds into the pattern I decided I would keep going till it was the size I needed and then stop.

About half way though first pineapple shapes

Two things happened as I worked. I began to realize that since I only had that one skein of the white thread, that I should try to use it all up. I also realized that I would not be finishing the full pattern. I got up to round 18 and had what looked like only a small amount of thread left, so I stopped there.

After that I decided to close all my points, as I was one row into a new set of pineapple shapes. So after Round 18, I did the following:

Round 19: 3 sc in cluster chain space, ch 1, sc 5 in next space, ch2, *ch2, sc in top of loop*,*repeat across pineapple, ch 2, sc 5 across space, ch 1, 3 sc in top of next cluster, ch1, 6sc in large space, ch 2 over the joint from the row before, sc 6 in next large chain space, repeat from the start, join to first with slip stitch.

After my round 19, I still had a bit of thread, so I thought I would try to get around the outside once more to give the edge a thickness to keep it in shape.

Round 20: sc in each sc, 2sc in the chain spaces, join to first with slip stitch

At this point I did not have enough thread to do a third edger row so I bound it off. 

Finished to my standards.

I laid it out on my table... I would say that there is about 5 inches of space between the edge of my doily and the edge of the table, so that makes it about 27 inches across. I think if I properly stretch it out and stiffen it, I could probably get it to 30 inches as it has a lot of give. I do like the size, but think I will try to find a round glass top for this table, too.

It doesn't look anything like the patterns picture since I didn't even get two pineapples into the doily, but I am happy with it. Maybe in the future I will try it with the right thread and hook, but no wonder old ladies have bad eyesight and arthritis...

Time to complete this: Worked on and off over about a month... can't see completing something like this in one sitting, let alone one week. Perhaps maybe 30 hours total; 3 hours a night for something like 10 days... sounds about right.