Oh boy, did I drop the ball. I promised I would share the finished doll I had made for a student, and I did not. That was (I’m counting on my fingers) nine months ago! Let me just say my student loved the doll, played with the doll, and now has asked me to fix the doll because her mom washed it and the hair went crazy. She hasn’t brought it back to me yet for the doll surgery, but hopefully she will so I can get her on her feet again.
She was so cute!
She had to have some shoes.
Here she is with her design page. Yep, that’s how I work!
Sitting with her bestie. This ugly doll (left) inspired the cute one (right).
I started graduate school and unfortunately blogging took a back seat, but the crochet hasn’t stopped. I plan on sharing more of my creations.
I’ve gone back to school! I’m attempting to get a Master’s in Library Science and it’s been a rough few weeks. Grad school started at about the same time the new school year started at work, and it’s been crazy busy. I’m three weeks in at work and I’m finally able to start my crochet projects with the kids.
One little girl, who is in 2nd grade now, has been asking if I could sell her one of the crochet items I had in the prize box, or if I could custom make something she could buy. She was asking me this in first grade. I told her she could just earn stars (an incentive program we have) and get it for free. Well, here we are in a brand new year and she started asking me again. She’s pretty stubborn about wanting to buy something from me so I told her that I would give her a big discount and she could go ahead and buy one of my dolls.
I wanted to make a toy I could wear on my shoulder at Disneyland. I see people walking around with Baby Groot, Grogu, and all sorts of characters from movies. Naturally I wanted to make one and not buy one. I have yet to see a handmade shoulder doll and I’m excited to see if I can do it. I would need to figure out a way to secure it to my shoulder. I think they use magnets on the ones they sell. I was thinking I would tie mine on.
At first, I was going to make Grogu from the Mandalorian TV show, but I’m a bit tired of making that character. I like bounding as Ursula, so I settled on making her. I envisioned that it would sit well on my shoulder.
I got to work. It took me a few days to figure out how to make her head. I made it in rows instead of rounds.
I was happy with the shape of it but was really disappointed with how loosely it came out. I should have started over, but I kept going.
Those holes were terrible! And then I hated the face!
The body and tentacles came out much better. After I stuffed it, I hated the head even more because it had those gaping holes! I almost abandoned the whole thing but carried on, figuring I would make a new one anyway. Also, I thought I could distract from the holes with the hair. I liked the hair, but then hated the face. I thought it was ugly.
I liked the look of the tentacles.
Once she was all put together, she grew on me.
In the end, I loved half of this doll and it might be too big for my shoulder! I’m still going to try. Even though I’m not as happy as I was hoping to be with this her, I got a lot of positive feedback on Instagram, gaping holes and all. It got me looking at her in a new light. What do you think? Do you like her? Should I take her to Disneyland?
My niece was having a baby (she had a baby boy), and I wanted to give her something special for her baby shower. She loves all things Star Wars, and specifically Baby Yoda/Grogu from The Mandalorian show on Disney. I just knew she would love a crochet lovey.
The first attempt wasn’t quite right, so of course I had to make a second one. They were both cute, but I think the second one turned out better. I ended up keeping the first one, long enough to take it to Disneyland. After that, I gave it to my sister for her grand baby.
Here is a surprise gift I made for my son last Christmas. I had learned one of his favorite characters from the video game Kingdom Hearts is Sora. I wanted to try my hand at making him. I very rarely use patterns for my creations. Most of what I make is my own design, and I use the term ‘design’ loosely here because I usually just go… But I do plan, mostly in my head, but sometimes on paper. This one was mostly in my head. I started by looking at many photos and sometimes videos of the character.
Then I looked at crochet examples of the character from other people. This allowed me to 1) figure out what important characteristics should be included and 2) ideas on how to implement, or not implement, certain techniques. Then I thought on it all before I got started.
It’s that time of year again when our fifth-graders graduate and move on to middle school. Before the pandemic, I would make my fifth-graders little graduation hats in the school colors. I would fill the hats with different things, or put them on a large lollipop. It became an expectation because the kids remembered the hats from the previous years and looked forward to them when they became 5th graders.
This year, because of the pandemic, none of the kids even remember about the hats. I only had two fifth grade boys in the morning program and two boys in the afternoon program. None had shown any interest in my crochet. Although the hats aren’t hard, I didn’t want to spend time on projects that were just going to end up in the trash. I went ahead and asked one of the boys if he would want one, and he was actually excited about it. He told me he still had something I had made that he picked from the prize-box when he was in second or third grade.
Well, that was all I needed to go ahead and make the hats again. I had already decided to make all four but that afternoon, another boy told me he talked to the other boy and had heard about the hats and would love one. That made me feel great about making them. Now I just need to figure out what to fill them with. 😁
Oh how the kids hound me sometimes. This time, it was one of my second grade girls. She’s been insisting I make a crochet tarantula for weeks. I had no other pressing projects, so I relented. We looked up pictures for inspiration, and I had her look in our yarn drawer to see what colors we had.
We only had yellow, orange, and a little bit of pink. I asked her what colors she wanted for certain parts, and I got to work.
I wasn’t sure I could pull it off.
Once it was finished, the kids kept trying to play with it. In fact, I found it very interesting that of all the pretty cool things I’ve made for them in the past, this one really impressed them. One girl who never shows any interest in my crochet said, “Wow, you made that?” I was like, really? I made the large doll that’s in the classroom! You’re surprised I could make a little spider? 😂
Another boy, who does love my crochet, said, “Wow, this shows you’re an art person. You could teach this. Like, you could have a class.” What do you think I’ve been doing all these years with all of you? 😂 This is what it took to impress these kids. Maybe it’s the novelty of it, but hey, I’m glad they liked it. 😄
The kids wanted me to do a photo shoot, and they had a lot of ideas of where to take it’s picture.
The kids have been all about the characters from the online game Among Us and asked me to make the red and blue characters. They looked pretty easy and fast to make.
He didn’t last long in the Ultimate Prize-Box
I didn’t get a chance to take pics of the blue one. It was already spoken for fresh off my hook. Just picture this one in blue. 😃
One of my very favorite book series of all time is the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. After years of claiming I would make characters from the books, I finally did it. And here they are, in their very own photo shoot: Harry Dresden, Bob the skull, Mister the cat, and Mouse the temple dog.
Harry Dresden, at your service.
Ready to take on the bad guys.
Harry wouldn’t be able to make it without his crew.
yochet 