Knitted Octopus (pattern from Hansi Singh)

This pattern comes from Hansi Singh's wonderful book: Amigurumi Knits: Patterns for 20 Cute Mini Knits, which I highly recommend.  I received a copy from my lovely boyfriend when I first started knitting and I've really been too intimidated to try anything until now.  I was wondering if I would have a "can't believe I waited so long to do this" moment, but as complicated as these are, I'm glad I did wait.

Lurking background tomato

This is my first knitted amigurumi item.  (I also did the tomato from the same book but it's not nearly as exciting.)  It's strange how in crochet, I would consider amigurumi accessible to the beginner, but in knitting... not a chance.  This is probably the most complicated knitted item I've made so far.  Keeping all the different types of increases and decreases straight was a challenge.

Eye bulge extraordinaire

I did have some trouble with leaving gaps from incorrectly done increases (thanks for nothing, M1R & L, you tricky bastards!) and from picking up stitches to join the shapes together.  I like the way the construction is done, though.  It really eases you into the design and use of short rows which was new to me.  I like that the jacket of the book can be used as bookmarks for the tutorial section.  I had to make some sticky note pointers to locate each stitch guide on the pages though because they're a bit thrown together to save space.

Octopus and tomato

Inside the legs are pipe cleaners to give him some gripping and posing power.  I was worried about running out of the purple yarn so I added those green head stripes.  It was a near thing.  I decided to add the eyes, which are done separately with crochet (6sc in a ring, 12 sc, 8 sc), stuffed and embroidered with black and white in a little square.  Apparently that's how octopuses like to do their eyes.  In a square.

All done, ready for world domination

I may add some sequin or beaded suckers on later when I'm not feeling quite so glad to be done with the whole thing.  I did this over a series of evenings between different things so it was a lot of picking up and putting back down again.  Feeling happy to have this completed and a new skill learned.  My little project on ravelry.

Frozen dolls in progress

Finally settled on a pattern for the dolls for my boyfriend's nieces and got started.  I keep getting sidetracked by other things so it's a bit slow going.  Really excellent free patterns for two sizes of similar dolls from byhookbyhand: http://byhookbyhand.blogspot.com/2015/02/simply-amis.html  Made some changes to the legs so they don't bend but I love the head design that can swivel.  This is a great intro to making dolls with movable joints which opens up so many possibilities for future projects.

I decided to crochet the doll bodies and sew on the clothes for more details.  There's a lot of cute embroidery to add here.  Still no hair done so they're looking a little bald but I want to get it right.  I think once the first set of dolls is done the second set should go much faster since I'm taking a lot of notes and making drawings and diagrams.  The little snowman should be easiest because he has no clothes and there are tons of reference projects out there for him.

Need some motivation to get working on these again.  I've noticed that if the excitement of the idea wears off before I'm done, it's bad news for that project.

Crochet Humanoid Figure

Latest project - a little crochet thread figure base for a character.

For every project I make notes and diagrams in my graph paper notebook.

Finished size is about 5 inches tall.  Worked in crochet thread and embroidery thread on steel hooks.  For construction I started with head down into shoulders, then feet up into body and connect to shoulder piece.  Then separate arms attached to shoulders and hands added last.  The hands had to be very small so I had to find a matching embroidery thread color.  I could have done a little mitten.  Might change it up if I make another.  Wrote about three pages of notes to get everything right.  I intend to sew some little cloth clothes for him.

Pattern:

Hooks: 2.75mm and 1.3mm

Thread: Off white crochet thread & matching embroidery thread

Head:

Worked in rows and joined each row

R1: 5 sc in ring

R2: 10

R3: 12

R4: 12

R5: 12

R6: 12

R7: 10

Here I tied off, wove the tail through the 10 stitches and pulled tight.

Shoulders: 

Worked 6 slip stitches into the base of the finished off head - alternately you could decrease from 10 to 6 stitches.. not sure why I did it this way.  Worked 6 sc into the slip stitches, then work the shoulders/chest:

R1: Sc, sc, inc, sc, sc, inc

R2: Sc, sc, inc, inc, sc, sc, inc, inc

R3: Sc, sc, 3 sc in the next stitch - repeat 3 more times

R4: Sc, sc, sc, 3 sc in the next stitch, (sc, sc, sc, sc, 3 sc in the next stitch) repeat 2 more times, end with sc & tie off

Feet, legs, body:

R1: 6 sc in ring and slip to the first stitch (6), then ch and work 2 sc into the first 2 stitches (2), turn ch and work sc into the two you just made (2)

R2: ch 1, turn and in the back loops only, decrease the 2 stitches into 1, work another decrease into the side of the two rows of 2 sc, then work 5 sc around the circular part, work a decrease in the other side of the 2 short rows and slip stitch to the first stitch (8)

R3: Decrease, 4 sc, decrease (6)

R4: Decrease, 4 sc (5)

Then work rows of 5 sc (12 rows including round 4) and there should be 14 rows total in the foot and leg combined.

Tie off the first leg and work a second.

To connect the legs and start the body, you'll position the legs together so the feet are at an angle you like and work some sc in the current leg you just made until you get to the middle of the body (looking at the photos, I worked the left leg first and the right second) to make the gap between the legs, foundation sc a few stitches (mine was 2) and then attach to the second leg by sc around.  Then sc into the back side of the foundation stitches, and back around the first leg until you get to the first stitch you made so the pattern would be like:

In current leg, sc 3, foundation sc 2 stitches and then connect to the first leg and sc around (5), 2 sc in the back of the foundation sc, and 2 into the first leg, sl st to the first sc.  Work the next row, continuing around the current leg, into the foundation chain, around the other leg and back (14 stitches)

Then work around and around in rows of 14 stitches, should be 9-10 total rows in the body.

To connect the body to the shoulders, mark the 4 points where the shoulders will fold to meet the round body (2 opposite sides will attach to the body and 2 will become the arm holes).  For this, the shoulder piece will have 4 sides of 7 stitches each (not exactly on the corners) and those corners will meet on the two sides of the round body piece.  I added a little stuffing and sewed together with sewing thread & needle.

Arms:

R1: Sc 5 into a ring, slip to first stitch

R2: Work 5 sc in the back loops only (this end is the wrist so depending on what kind of hand you will make, you may want to work in both loops and keep the end open

Work about 8 rows of 5 sc and in the last full row, increase to 6 stitches, put the increase anywhere.

Last row: to make an angled shoulder work a short row of 2 sc and 1 slip stitch

Push a little more stuffing into the arm holes and sew on arms

Fingers and Thumbs:

For this I switched to embroidery thread and smaller hook and worked very small I cords.  These are very fidgety and leave a lot of ends to sew in.

For the fingers:

R1: Ch 3 and pull up a loop through chains 1 and 2 (3 loops on the hook)

R2: Pop off the first two loops and chain 1 through the remaining loop.  Put loop 2 back on the hook and chain 1, put loop 1 back on the hook and chain 1.

R3: Repeat row 2

R4: Pop off first two loops and chain 1 through the remaining loop.  Put the 2nd loop back on the hook and pull through the first, pull loop 1 through as well, tie off

For the thumb, work the same pattern but skip round 3 to make it shorter.

To attach the fingers and thumb, I used a different method on each hand.  First method is just sewing on individual fingers onto the end of the arm and the second is to crochet around all 4 fingers and then attach that to the arm.

Little Crochet Khal Drogo

Just finished up some fierce little eyebrows for the king of the great grass sea.  He might need a little eye liner I'm not sure yet.  He ended up with like... so much hair.  So.  Much.  Need to make some little swords and a khaleesi for him.  She has sooo many cute outfit possibilities.

How to space increases and decreases evenly

For most of my own improvised patterns, I don't write out a complete set of pattern instructions.  They're mostly lists of stitch numbers for each round like "6, 12, 18...".  It can be a little troublesome to figure out how to evenly space my increases and decreases from just numbers so I developed a little way to help myself figure it out quickly and get on with the fun part of crochet.

For example, my 10 row sphere has some funny numbers that don't work out so evenly:

For increasing:

1. Subtract the number of stitches in the smaller row (5) from the larger row (9): 9-5=4
• So you will work 4 increases over the 5 stitches from the previous row.
2. Subtract the number of increases (4) from the previous round number (5): 5-4=1
• 4 stitches will be worked as increases and 1 will be worked even
3. Figure out where to place increases and even stitches:
• Divide the number of even stitches (1) by number of increases (4): 1/4=0.25 so in this example, you can see that there are not enough even stitches to put between all the increases.
• Sometimes, like in this example, you'll need to eyeball it and with only a few stitches, it shouldn't be a problem.  If you have 5 stitches to work in and 4 will be increases and 1 worked even, I would put the sc in the middle of the increases, so: Inc, Inc, Sc, Inc, Inc
• For larger numbers, for example, for working round 5, the previous round has 15 stitches and round 5 has 16.  You'll need to work 1 increase (16-15=1) and 14 even stitches (15-1=14).  In this case, you'd want to work 7 Sc, Inc, 7 Sc instead of 14 sc, inc.
• In cases where you have 2 increases to work, you'll want to space them evenly around the circle, keeping in mind where your join is.  For example, for round 4, you have 2 increases to work over 13 stitches (11 even and 2 increases).  You could just work 5 Sc, Inc, 6 Sc, Inc, but to keep it spaced evenly around the join, it would be better to work 3 Sc, Inc, 5 Sc, Inc, 3 Sc.  The number works out correctly in both methods, but the second gives you a more even shape, and working each round with that in mind will keep your whole shape more even.  It helps me a lot to visualize what I'm doing:

Increase with the join in mind, like on the right side.

• So for each round, you'll want to divide the stitches worked even by the number of increases and then take one section and break it in half for either side of the join.  They won't always work out evenly, so it's ok to put 3 on one side and 4 on the other, for example.  One more example: for an 11 row sphere, row 5 is 18 stitches worked over 16 stitches from round 4.  18-16= 2 increases, and 16-2 = 14 even stitches over 16 from the previous row.  Even stitches (14) divided by increases (2): 14/2=7.  So you'll have two sections of 7 sc and 2 increases.  Divide one of the sections of 7 in half (3 sc and 4sc) and put them on either side of the join.  So you could wind up with either 3 sc, inc, 7 sc, inc, 4 sc or 4 sc, inc, 7 sc, inc, 3 sc.  If you are making a sphere, when you come to the sister decrease round, do the opposite way.  You could also make it so every round is a mirror by slightly changing the totals.  For example instead of splitting 3 and 4 around the join, you could do 3 on both side and 8 in the middle or 4 on both sides and 6 in the middle.  If you're using the seam side of the ball as a head for example, this might give you the best result so that the side with the seam is the back.

For decreasing, it's worked much the same way.  Keep in mind that if you are making a ball, you only have to figure out the increase rounds and then just copy them to the appropriate decrease round because the number will be the same, you'll just be decreasing in stead of increasing.

1. Subtract the current smaller round's stitches from the larger previous round's stitches to find the number of decreases.  
• For row 8 with 13 stitches: 15-13 = 2 decreases
2. Multiply the number of decreases by 2 and subtract that from the number of stitches from the previous round to find the number of stitches worked even.
• 2*2=4, 15-4= 11 stitches worked even
3. Then divide the even stitches by the decreases and split one section around the join.
• 11/2=5.5 (5 and 6, split the even one)  So Sc 3, dec, Sc 5, dec, Sc 3

Once you have the method down, you can do rows with large numbers without much of a problem.

Example: in a 40 row ball, row # 13 will have 56 stitches worked in the previous round's 53 stitches.  There will be 3 increases and 50 stitches worked even.  50/3 is 16.67 so you'll have the join, about half of 16, inc, about 16, inc, about 16, inc and about half of 16 again.  When you put in actual numbers and adjust it a little, it works out to: Sc 8, inc, sc 17, inc, sc 17, inc, sc 8.

A little calculator to help out: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1y_eqsUS7KwJDe2CrijShjhv7yRAdE193_PmSBDBHYtk/edit?usp=sharing

Little Deadpool

Just finished this guy up yesterday.  Tons of accessories on this one.  All of the pouches open but I wasn't sure what to make to put in there.  The big bottom ones have some guns.

Little White Walker

Inspired by geekyhooker.wordpress.com - so many cool little characters!

Awwwww watch out John Snow get cha boys.  Papa smurf coming to whoop that ass.

Coming soon - little John Snow?

This was a really fun, quick project to break up the monotony of giant blanket making.  It would be easy to make the whole cast of characters for tons of shows.  This hair technique is one that I've used before except that you separate the strands of yarn a bit before tying them on.  I also did something new which is stitching with yarn on the face to make eye brows and cheek bones and a nose.  The little spear was quicker to make than I thought.  Just a piece of wooden skewer from the kitchen drawer wrapped in brown embroidery thread and stuck a piece of foil tape on the pointy bit.

Pattern for the crochet bit is very simple: two spheres stitched together with a little modification.

Body:
Work a sphere: 6, 12, 18, BLO 18, 21, 24, 25, 24, 21, 18, 12, 6.  Stuff in some poly-fil before closing and thread tail through remaining 6 stitches.  I prefer to alternated threading one stitch front to back and the next back to front all the way around and then pulling tight, tying a knot and hiding the end.  To help the body stand up easily, I slip stitched a separate row around the bars from the BLO row to make a little lip around the bottom and press the first three rows flat.

Head:
Work a sphere: 6, 12, 18, 21, 24, 25, 24, 21, 18, 12, 6.  Stuff with poly-fil before closing and attach safety eyes if you want.  I sewed beads on the outside later because I didn't have blue safety eyes.

To sew the head and body together, I sew a line of contrasting color loosely around in a circle on both pieces where I want to attach as a guide.  Then place the pieces together (both decrease ends to hide them) and pin together with long straight pins for sewing.  I use pins with big heads so they can't slip into the doll.  Then sew together with needle and thread.

I'll maybe get around to making a more detailed pattern some time.

Little Beast Boy

I really should write out this pattern if I can find my notes.  It would be fun to make all of the Teen Titan characters.  Just photos for now.  He needs his belt to be attached and this was my first attempt at hair so I would definitely do a few things differently.

Crochet Octopus

This is a very simple pattern.  There's no shortage of similar patterns out there for free, but this is one of the first patterns I actually made myself a few years ago.  I think a lot of people make an octopus pattern early on in their pattern creations because single crocheting into a chain creates a very curly shape and you think of hair or octopus tentacles.

This creature is made using cotton yarn and as small a hook as you are comfortable using so that there are not gaps between stitches.  I used a 4mm hook and Sugar N Cream Cotton yarn. I worked this in continuous rounds, marking the beginning of each row with stitch marker.  The head contains a little poly-fil stuffing.  Add the stuffing whenever you feel comfortable.

The Pattern:

Top of the head down to base of head:
R1: Ch 2, 6 sc in 2nd chain from hook (or magic loop) [6]
R2: 2 sc in each sc [12]
R3: Sc, inc around [18]
R4: Sc around [18]
R5: Sc around [18]
R6: Sc around [18]
R7: Sc, dec around [12] (work decreases in the front loops only to reduce gaps)
R8: Sc around [12]
R9: Sc, dec around, slip to first stitch in row [8] (final row should be the number of tentacles)

Tentacles:

Begin in any stitch - In the back loop only (the outside edge of the bowl shaped head - the front loop will be used to close the hole in the head), sc, ch 20 (or any number you like). Slip into the first two stitches of the chain and sc into 2 loops of each chain back to the body (this creates the curl in the tentacles).  Slip into the side of the sc at the beginning of the chain.  Repeat for the seven remaining tentacles.

After completing the final tentacle, slip to the side of the first tentacle's sc.  Ch 1, sc in each front loop of the stitches that you worked in the back of previously (about 6 is fine if it gets tight), slip to first sc, cut yarn and whip through each stitch, pull tight and weave in.

Eyes: 

I used a two round little cup shapes to hold in some large googly eyes, but any other method would work if they need to be safe for a child.

For the cups: 

R1: Ch 2, 6 sc in first ch (or magic loop)

R2: In the back loop only, sc in each stitch (add or subtract a stitch to fit googly eye), place googly eye, sew to head.

You'll need to adjust this if you're using a different size.  My oval eyes were 9 sc, and large round eyes were 7 sc.

Embellishments:

A few sequins or beads sewn onto the tentacles will resemble their suckers.  Solid color or color changing yarn will give you different cool results.

Mr. Octopus is now on ravelry!  Yay!