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.
