Creature of the Night

After making Topsee during my convelesence a couple of weeks ago I got an urge to make another softie, a big chunky huggable one, from my own design.  The high dose of steroids I am on tends to wake me in the night, too much cortisone running through my veins, and I had a few nights between 2 and 5am where I just sat and scribbled designs for creatures.  There are quite a few to be made but the first to emerge is "Alien" as she has become known...

In my initial little middle-of-the-night sketch I knew I wanted it to have a big head and gangly limbs, and a pot belly was essential too.  I wanted it to be simple in colour, with stripey legs and cute little ears.  I do want to make another version with floppy ears too.

Lillia referred to the Creature as "Alien" the whole time I was making it, and because it is made with lilac wool she was also declared to be a girl.  Every girl needs an accessory so I made Alien a little neck scarf with a funky shell button, I think it suits her well, don't you?

Alien was my first proper go at completely designing something myself.  She evolved in a fairly organic way - I applied what I knew about crochet and just did everything by sight.  Once the circle for her face was wide enough I started to form the main part of the head, then once that was wide round enough I started to close it off to form the correct size.  For her body I worked decreases and increases to form her belly and bottom, although I would like to go back and make the placement of these a bit neater I am quite happy with how it all turned out.

I wrote everything down, every single stitch is documented, so I can make more Aliens and, more importantly, I can share the pattern with you here!  So if you love Alien and would like to make one yourself I shall be posting the pattern here very soon, as soon as I can get time to perfect it and write it all up.  And I have more to come too, a few more creatures being formed from those sleepless nights sitting up sketching the steroid-induced images in my head.

I really loved designing and making Alien and I can't wait to perfect the pattern and share it, I could really see myself doing many more!  Do let me know what you think of her :)

x

Happy Hooker Backwards Project #34: Bedfellows

I started this particular project on my second night in hospital.  It took me nearly two hours to get beyond the first round of stitches - no matter what I did I just couldn't get it to work.  The old lady in the bed opposite, Joyce, kept encouraging me though.  She kept saying "don't give up girl!" So I didn't...I just changed things a bit, altered the slip stitches to become single stitches, changed from an 8mm to a 4.5mm hook, and kind of winged it.

Nearly everything I did was wrong.  The size, the yarn, the stitch, the hook, the technique, the increases and decreases.  This project was doomed from the very start.

But somewhere along the way....

...a new friend began to take shape...

...and what should have been a disaster....

....actually turned into....Topsee :)

Named by Lillia (the spelling is hers too) Topsee is a new firm favourite in our house.

I made her arms and legs longer than the pattern, and her head is bigger, her ears are floppier.  Her eyes are beadier and her nose is wonkier.  But Topsee is our beautiful bunny friend...

She is already to be found mingling amongst the toys...

...helping with morning spelling practice...

...and I had a little smile to myself when I found her abandoned in the reclining position in Lillia's bed...

Lillia says she is "nimble and flexible", a Ballerina Bunny, which then led to the request for Topsee to have her own wardrobe.  We love Strictly Come Dancing in this house and we always watch it together on Saturday nights.  We decided that Topsee's first dress should be just like Holly Valance's salsa dress.

Here's the original...

And here's Topsee's very own crochet and sequinn version...

  

Yes, we do love Topsee :)

And here's the usual summary of the project:

• Cost - about £6 - I used less than a ball of each colour to make topsee, plus a little extra for her dress. 
• Yarn -  The purple is Patons Cottom Twist Aran (55% cotton, 45% acrylic) and is delightfully soft and tactile.  The light pink is Patons Smoothie DK.
• Hook - 4.5mm and 3mm.
• Difficulty - Goodness I struggled with this one!  I just couldn't get the hang of the slip stitches, but once I changed to single stitiches instead I got along better, but I had to make a lot of adjustments along the way.
• Overall happiness with finished object - Oh very happy!!  But not as happy as Lillia and her new best friend :)