Month: November 2024

The finished and stuffed Deadpool head.

As I mentioned last week, I realized that I needed to start thinking about some Christmas gifts for my family. I am currently a cash-poor student, so I wanted to find something that costed little but still felt like enough. My family won’t expect much from me as they know my financial situation, but I still wanted to give them something. I stumbled upon this new website, ApronBasket, that had a bunch of new and cool patterns. I found a bunch of blanket patterns and a sweater pattern that I liked, but I also found patterns for small Deadpool and Wolverine plushies that were created by eliyarnart. (These patterns are laid out well, are easy to follow, and have helpful pictures to ensure that you are on the right track. I would recommend these patterns to anyone who is interested.) I went to see the Deadpool and Wolverine movie with my Mom and Dad in Humboldt this summer, and I figured the plushies would be a cool memento of that.

I started with the Deadpool plushie, because the winged mask of Wolverine one was intimidating. Long story short, I accidentally picked the hardest one first.

The little legs.

The finished and stuffed legs and body.

The head of Deadpool was easy to start and complete as it was similar to the base of the other plushies that I had completed. The legs and body, however, were a rough time. I had issues with different tensions in both legs so they are different sizes unless you carefully mold them to look similar. I was not about to retry the one leg because switching the yarn colours (red to black and back) was painful. I originally used the method I learned from this YouTube short by HollyAuna (very informative, very clear), but I was worried about the ends not staying where they should.  In the end, I just started tying knots when changing the yarn colours, because I could hide them on the inside of the plushie. I had to make the knot far away enough from the inside wall of the plushie so that I had some slack in the yarn to work with, but had to put it close enough that it did not mess with the tension of the next stitch. I was mostly successful at finding that happy medium.

Little arms.

The finished project (pink belt and all).

When I tell you that changing the colours was tedious, I mean it. I had to change colours every few stitches and had to double and triple check that I did the right number of stitches prior to switching colours, because I couldn’t exactly go back and fix it. The body realistically didn’t take me that long to do, but I would not want to do it again because of all of those colour changes

Finished and stuffed Wolverine head.

Less colour changes. Yes!!!!!

The arms were not as bad to do as it was only one colour change. However, I did stuff the arms even though the pattern told me not to. The flat arms just did not sit well with me, so I decided to just put a little bit of stuffing into the arms to get the exact shape I wanted. Sewing all of the parts together was easy to do as well, although I did poke myself a lot when I was sewing on the arms and the belt. (Also, the belt was supposed to be brown, but I only had peach. I figured that Deadpool wouldn’t care too much about that. Probably would make him feel more fabulous.) The eyes weren’t even that bad to do either even though I had to do some precise cutting. With some felt and fabric glue that I procured in Saskatoon on a recent trip (before all of the snow happened), I created a paper pattern that was the shape and size I wanted, cut the felt based on that, and glued everything together. I am proud of how it came together!

I marked the front of the plushie as well as the places for the stripes.

I had to pin the black felt as the glue dried, because it need to wrap around the head a bit.

Next came Wolverine, which I was able to finish much faster. Wolverine was much easier to do, although there still were a good amount of colour changes. There were colour changes in the legs and arms, but only one or two per appendage. The worst area was the face where Wolverine’s actual skin colour is supposed to show. Also, I had to adjust the number of stitches I was doing with my skin-colour yarn as the yarn I was using was a much smaller size. The math was difficult to do, but somehow not as frustrating as the yarn changing of Deadpool. I messed up on one of the skin colour rows, but I used the felt mask/eyes to hide that mistake, so it’s fineeeeeeee.

Wolverine’s assembly was also easy, although I did almost put the head on backwards (oops). I believe that the felt portions of this plushie are done pretty well too. I was worried about the black part not having the right size or shape, but I think my paper patterns and cutting skills were even better this time around!

Front view of the finished Wolverine.

Side view of the finished Wolverine.

Overall, I am very proud of my creations this week as they pushed me to learn a new skill, crossed some things off of my Christmas shopping list, and increased my crocheting skills overall.

Up Next: Christmas Gifts Intensify

This is the half-completed dino body.

If I’m going to be honest, I was kind of disappointed with the fact that the duck from last week was so small. I should have completely expected it as the final size was mentioned in the pattern, but I was still kind of shocked at how small it was. To ensure that I would create something a bit larger, I decided to choose the  Mini Dino pattern made by Handmade by Ani that I had found on the LoveCrafts website. I loved how the finished examples of the plushie looked, and I wanted to create one for myself.

Embroidering was much easier with the ability to flatten the main piece.

I got off to a rough start, because I somehow started the plushie by going in the wrong direction. I am right-handed, so I crochet right-to-left. For a plushie, that means that I would be looking at the outside of it while rotating the plushie counter-clockwise as I work on it. The opposite would happen for people who are left-handed. I apparently unconsciously decided that I wanted to do it the left-handed way, and I ended up doing a couple of rounds before realizing that I was straining to look at the inside of the plushie (which is a no-no). I could have maybe continued on this way, but it would have just caused me a lot of issues later on and I wanted to avoid that.

Front view of the fully completed and stuffed body.

My other part of the rough start was not completely realizing that the terminology for this pattern was in UK terms, unlike the Duck pattern which was in US terms. I was very confused for a few rounds and ended up decreasing when I should have been doing a regular double crochet stitch. Lesson Learned: Double check what terminology is used and ensure you know what each abbreviation actually stands for on each and every pattern.

On the plus side, I had a much easier time with the embroidery. I did not poke myself nearly as much, and I felt that this face (especially the eyes) turned out better than the Duck’s did. I am very proud of the progress that I made there. Additionally, the stitching of the body went very smoothly, and I was confident in my ability to do that throughout the piece. I quite enjoyed the process of doing it too.

The 4 spikes.

Unfortunately, the good times were not going to last. I decided to skip the tail and do the spikes first. I had a lot of issues getting the spikes done as I was keeping the tension too tight, and the purple yarn that I used was really dark (which made it hard to see all of the individual strands unless it was under intense light). I kept having too many or not enough stitches in a round, and I was frustrated by time I finished them. If you look closely enough at the pictures, you can tell which one of the spikes got a little messed up because of these issues and me accepting defeat. It’s not horrible, just slightly noticeable. Then came the challenge of the tail.

The beginning of the dino’s tail.

I should note that the pattern was relatively easy to follow. Most of the things in it were things that I had already encountered, and it was laid out very well for a beginner crocheter and pattern-reader. However, the tail part of the dino started with a standing double crochet stitch. I had no idea what that looked like or what it was and I was stressing out real bad over it. I had to take a break from crocheting for a few days for reasons beyond my control, so I was stressed about it for longer than I needed to be. Handmade by Ani, the pattern creator, had a couple of linked videos that they suggested I use for this process, and I was at least glad for that direction.

When I finally sat down to attempt this new stitch, I was very confused. There were two videos linked and described similarly, so I did not know which one to pick. I just went with the first one, and that was a mistake. Knot too Shabby Crochet-Melanie’s video is probably a good one, but it did not help me with what I was trying to do. It just confused and frustrated me more as it did not explicitly explain a standing double crochet stitch. I crossed my fingers as I clicked on the second link, and it definitely did not let me down. Tamara Kelly – Moogly explained clearly and concisely how to do the standing double crochet stitch, and I caught on quickly. All I had to do was a slip knot and then a regular double crochet stitch. So much stress for something that ended up being so simple.

The big holes before.

The non-holes after.

The rest of the assembly went well. I finished up the tail easily, used some extra yarn on the end of it to cover up some of the larger holes around the tail, and began to sew the spikes on the dino’s back. I used an X or crossing pattern on the spikes to lock down the sides of each spike, and then I went up and down to secure the fronts and backs of each spike. Safe to say that those spikes aren’t coming off anytime soon.

The spikes pinned into place.

Overall, I am proud of this plushie, especially the embroidery. The side-eye was kind of an accident but I think that makes it look even better. It gives the dino character as one of my family members said. Despite the frustrations I had, I think that I would create another dino. Now that I know what to expect, this pattern is not as daunting as it was before.

Finished Dino from the front.

Finished Dino from the side.

Up Next: Plushies as Christmas Gifts??

The upside-down duck head.

As you maybe guessed from the title of this post, my first plushie creation is a duck! (What makes the title even funnier is that I don’t have any grapes at the moment.)

The rubber duck-like plushie seemed like a good place to start. It seemed like a small plushie and the pattern had simple techniques that I felt I could execute well. The pattern made me feel like it would be hard to find something to mess up and easy to fix any mistakes I made. For a beginner plushie-maker, this eased my already high anxiety.

Most of the duck’s body.

The Daisy the Duck pattern was posted onto the LoveCrafts site by creator FollowTheYarn. The pattern was free and came in an easily accessible PDF format. The pattern is very short, as the duck is meant to easily fit in your palm, so the steps themselves only cover 2 of the 4 pages. The other 2 pages contain a list of necessary materials, what each of the abbreviations in the pattern stand for, and a very large final project picture. Speaking of pictures, there were plenty of pictures showing several of the different stages of the duck’s creation. This also helped to ease my anxiety, because I could reference those photos to ensure that I was on the right track. Above all, this was a decent pattern for a beginner like me to start their plushie journey with. (Minus the beginner-unfriendly issues that I describe below.)

Had to add some stuffing next!

There were several roadblocks that I came across (which any great journey contains). Due to plushies being circular or circle-adjacent, I needed to use a stitch marker to ensure that I knew where I was at in each round/row and when to switch to the next one. I found that also counting the stitches in each round after I had finished it, and ensuring that the final total matched what the pattern said, was a good way of double-checking my work. (I thank myself for learning how to count stitches and use stitch markers before this point.) I thought that these strategies and the skills I learned before would be all I needed to execute the pattern properly. Oh, how I was wrong.

This is round 3. It reads: 1 single crochet first, 1 single crochet increase second, and repeat that 6 times. The 18 just states the number of stitches that you should have when you are done that round.

The first actual roadblock I faced was just reading the pattern itself. I got to Round 3 and thought, “What the heck is this?” (This was maybe said in more colourful language. Probably.). I had no idea what the brackets or the comma meant, but I at least knew that single crochet stitches and single crochet stitch increases were involved. I searched in desperation for help and found Amy’s Amigurumi Adventure’s video. Their video not only taught me how to read that exact round of the pattern, but also taught me the exact meanings for the brackets, the comma, and the number at the end of everything. I applied this new knowledge as I was following the rest of the pattern. Crisis #1 averted.

This is the completed body of the duck.

Crisis #1.5 was a mixture of tension issues and large spaces between stitches. I originally blamed the yarn for its strands splitting apart and causing me issues, but, in hindsight, I think I was just making the tension wayyyyy too tight. Also, I wanted to ensure that the holes were small, but I think I was just being really picky because none of the stuffing has decided to pour out of them yet. I think that I was also too harsh with the larger holes that were caused by the increases and decreases (compared to the regular stitches). I did a comparison between the regular and invisible versions after I finished the duck (I used the invisible versions on the duck even though it was not specifically called for), and I definitely made the best choice to get the smallest holes. Crocheting is always going to leave behind some holes, and I just gotta deal with that.

I had to pin the beak in place since I needed my hands in other places.

Crisis #2 came when I had to close up the plushie. I had assumed that the pattern would guide me through that process, but, much to my dismay, it did not. Once again, I had to look to an outside source for help. I decided to head back to the Woobles tutorial page, since I knew for sure that I could find what I needed there. I was surprised to find no video when I clicked on the How to finish amigurumi link, but the 4 pictures with short, well-explained text under each were easy enough to understand, and I had my duck closed up in no time.

Beak on and one eye done!

The last steps were to create the beak and sew it and some eyes on to the duck’s face. The pattern called for button eyes, but I felt like I could embroider them decently enough. I also did not want to go downstairs to raid my mother’s button jar and probably not find matching eye-buttons anyways. Admittedly, the sewing and embroidery were probably the hardest parts of this plushie as I have not really practiced my embroidery skills at any point in my life. I was also doing this on a piece that was not flat, so that added to the difficulty level. The beak may be a little bit crooked and the eyes a little beady, but I think that I still did a pretty good job for my first real try at something like this.

Overall, I am proud of my palm-sized duck plushie. There was a lot that I had to learn in a short time, but I didn’t give up mid-plushie nor when I poked myself with the embroidering needle many, many times. There are kinks in my process that I have to work out still, but I am still excited to try another plushie!

Up Next: Doug the Mini-Dino

Distinguished Duck Cat.

Despite my wish to move onto plushies right away, I unfortunately still had some skills that I needed to learn. This week, I learned about stitch increases and decreases as well as how to use stitch markers. These are arguably the most important skills that I had to learn as I would be using them the most while creating plushies. I mean… the magic ring skill from last week is really important too, but I probably will only use it once or twice per plushie. The increase and decrease techniques I learned this week will be the method I use create larger plushies or to close them up easier, and it is likely that I will be using those techniques at every point during the creation of a plushie. See the video below for a demonstration of my newly learned skills.

I have a whole host of sources that aided my learning this week. The most sizeable source that I learned from was Hopeful Turns’ How to Crochet for ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS playlist (this is the same person that made the rose video I used last week). I learned how to do stitch increases for the single, half-double, and double stitches, and I learned stitch decreases for the single, half-double, and double stitches from their videos (US Crocheting Terms). I was not exactly sure which stitches I would need to know increase and decrease techniques for, so I just did them all (because why not?). The decrease technique videos from Hopeful Turns were also where I learned that I had one less technique to master. I had assumed that the “Single Crochet Two Together” skill on one of my chosen patterns was some entirely different thing, but it turns out that it’s just another way of saying “single crochet decrease”. Woo Hoo! One less hurdle to get over before creating a plushie!

There’s nothing more annoying than having to put your crochet piece and hook down, pause, and re-wind a video multiple times when you are learning how to do a crochet technique. Hopeful Turns’ videos, thankfully, did not have this problem. Their videos allowed me to practice and execute increase and decrease techniques right alongside them, and they went through each step of each technique several times. There was no need for me to put down my work at all!

Also, the lack of attention span in me really appreciated that these videos were so short. However, I would advise anyone that is just starting to learn crocheting to watch these videos a little later in their learning journey (i.e. do the same steps to progress that I did). The length of the videos means that there is a bunch of information packed into a short amount of time. If you do not know/remember/understand the basic stitches, you will not be able to follow these videos very easily. If you do get to this point in your learning, you may want to put the videos on a slower speed just to be sure of where exactly you should put your crochet hook. Did I do that to make my life easier? Nope. But you should definitely learn form my stubbornness.

My stitch markers. I think I will use the smaller ones for rows/rounds and the bigger ones for limbs.

Once I had learned all I thought I could learn from the Hopeful Turns Playlist, I took a look at my whiteboard list. I thought that I was about to wipe the board clean, but I actually had two more techniques to learn! The invisible increase and invisible decrease techniques were not mentioned on Hopeful Turns’ playlist, so I completely forgot about them. During my search for tutorials, I stumbled upon The Woobles’ Invisible Single Crochet Decrease Video and Knit Grit’s Invisible Single Crochet Increase Video. I learned that the “invisible” versions of these techniques are meant to create smaller holes in a plushie and make plushies “look better” in both creators’ opinions. I wanted my plushies to look the best they could, so I was all in!

Both videos were very informative and actually gave many different ways in which invisible decrease and increase techniques could be executed. They both went through the process, and each of the different ways, slowly and thoroughly which I really appreciated. Both videos encouraged the viewer to choose the method of execution that best suited them. If I’m going to be honest, the open-endedness of the videos kind of scared me. I didn’t feel qualified enough yet to make those decisions for myself, because I still very much feel like a beginner. However, I figured out which methods for invisible decreases and increases were the easiest for me to do (as you would have seen in my demonstration video).

To use the stitch marker for a row, you have to place it underneath only the v-part of the stitch.

Finally, I needed to learn how to use stitch markers. I knew that I would never be able to remember where one round/row ended and another began if I didn’t learn how to use them. PlanetJune’s video on the use of stitch markers was more informative than I could have even imagined. They explained how to use stitch markers for the basic purpose of marking the beginning of a row/round, and they explained how to place stitch markers to mark where sewn-on limbs or embroidered features would be placed. I knew that some of my plushies would require assembly like that, but I never clued in to the fact that I might have to mark where those limbs went.

Overall, I learned a lot this week. I am happy with my progress despite being quite impatient these last couple of weeks to learn the last few techniques for creating plushies. I did not think that I would get through them this fast, especially considering the fact that I did a lot of subbing this week. Regardless, I am proud of myself and excited to see where next week takes me!

Next Week: My very first plushie creation!