The first frog was great, but he was more toad coloured than I wanted. So I decided to get on a new frog. This started by dying some yarn bright green and slightly lighter green. I think I measured ten grams from a skein of Titanium Sock yarn and then dropped it into a green bath. It didn’t exhaust entirely, so I dropped 10 more grams in to make some light green yarn.
As usual, the actual knitting time for a frog is very short, however, convincing myself to finish adding the arms and legs took several weeks yet again. I started him on October 22 and finished on November 26. The back, arms, and legs were done with a combination of the bright green sock yarn and DROPS Kid-Silk in 18 Apple Green and the tummy was the light green sock yarn and Søstrene Grene Mohair Blend in 1650 Blanc. He’s got wires in his arms and legs and is posable. I’ve not tried to pose him yet because I still want to make some clothes.
The original frog has since found a new home and I’m more than happy to have this one hanging out on the dinner table!
While I was knitting the Frog, I also investigated the possibility of making Mr Toad by Claire Garland. The toad is meant to be a standing figure that you also make clothes for. After finishing the frog, there was still a lot of yarn left. So I thought I’d use the toad green yarn for an actual toad. The method for making him is very interesting and creates a very strange shape.
Getting those legs to work out wasn’t very easy. You need to wrap them around to the front and then sew them together. One of them ended up a bit higher than the other for some reason. I included wire so he can actually stand up. Still, he also doesn’t look like the original image. He’s way too fat. I didn’t feel like pulling stuffing out (I also would’t know how, he was already so sewn together). So when I wanted to make his clothes, the patterns included didn’t really work out.
For his pants, I chose to use the knitting machine because it would all be straight or near straight anyway. The yarn was leftover from a pair of socks. I completely modified the pants pattern and tried and frogged the pieces several times before they fit and looked decent. I should still make a top of some sort for him. However, I’m not nearly as much a fan of him as I am of the frog, so I’m having a hard time committing to making more for him. He’ll stay pajamaed for a while yet, I think.
Frogs perching on lily pads make the best head gear.
I’ve been subscribed to Dot Pebbles a.k.a. Claire Garland’s newsletter for a few years now, and every so often I get a free pattern for a knit animal. These knits are always very life-like and look insanely complicated. I made the polar bear before and while it all worked out, I wasn’t sure it would while knitting it. So I’ve been eyeing the Frog pattern that’s been making the rounds on the internet recently. I thought I had received it a while ago in my free patterns too. Turns out that I indeed had and I really wanted to have a frog…
Since I really wasn’t sure if it was going to work, I tried to get similar yarns to the ones Claire Garland suggests. I got some drops kid-silk in my mailbox and dyed some fingering weight yarn in ‘toad-green’. The body and legs of the frog were going to be toad-green with apple-green kid-silk. It’s belly was undyed yarn with moonshine kid-silk.
Knitting the body is really fast. I only deviated from the pattern once, by skipping the mouth stitches. I couldn’t get them to work and it just looked awful. Once the body was done, I knit the legs and arms on. At that point, I decided that I need him to be posable so I found some armature wire in my stash and added that. When I make the frog again, I’m going to try to use the wire while knitting, instead of when it’s all done. That way, I can probably hide the ends without having to use so many bits of yarn. With the wire in, froggy can do push ups or sit awkwardly instead of just flop down.
So I had a completed frog when my mother sent an invite for her birthday party. The assignment was to wear ‘your best head gear’. I knew I wanted to wear my green Rita-cousin dress, so I wanted to make some sort of hat that would work with that. I also had this frog. 1+1 = 2 and I decided to make a lily-pad fascinator with the frog pinned to the top. The lily pad pattern was based on the left leaf from an image on the internet. I cut it out from the same green fabric as the dress, stretched over some foam. I then added some hair clips to the bottom. The frog was maneuvered into a normal sitting frog and safety-pinned onto the lily pad.
I love this thing. It’s adorable, it doesn’t hurt while wearing it, it’s got a frog, what’s not to like!
A while ago the shark plush has found a new home, but I didn’t want him to be the only plush in his new abode. So I made him a friend!
I used the same Kraken pattern from SewDesuNe as for Brian, however, I exchanged his face from one from the Octopus pattern. The original features included in Kraken are ‘angry’ and ‘happy’ but I wasn’t too big a fan of the happy one. The Octopus has some other fun options and I chose the ‘smiling eyes’. I tried to use fabrics that were sea-coloured, hence the blue-ish hues. For the bottom suckers, I used a dotted minky.
I think he’s very cute and hope he’ll have a lovely life.
Months ago, I had a chat with the colleague who made the Safari Mobile about what she wanted to get for a gift. I showed her some of the stuffed animals from the past and she immediately fell in love with the giraffe (and who wouldn’t!). So I set out to make the giraffe during my holiday in June. She asked for realistic colours so I googled giraffe and set out to find some brown felt. I chose to do his body in the off-white that I had, because none of the other colours would really work. The horns, legs and tail would be brown, with his snout and inner ears white.
As usual, a Choly Knight/Sew Desu Ne pattern comes together really easily. It starts with meditative stitching of the spots and other details. Then sewing the pieces together where all the notches actually line up and then stuffing it to within an inch of its life. Once I had the head and the body both finished, I tried to pin the head on to see where it should go. It was a little lopsided and it looked so cute that I left it that way and sewed it on crooked. Look at his little face! I love him so much and I hope his new family will too.
Two little giraffes, orange for a baby and one with a rainbow.
Sometimes things can be serendipitous. This combination of events happened a few weeks ago. My colleague was telling me about the wallpaper they had been hanging in their soon-to-be-born grandchild’s room. It had giraffes on it and her husband was making a cut out of two giraffes to have the grandchild’s name on it. I remembered seeing a free pattern of a giraffe come by from CholyKnight/SewDesuNe like a week before. I showed the giraffe pattern and we both fell in love.
That face!Diverse spotsThose ears are so cute
One of those giraffes needed to grace the new nursery. It just had to happen. So I got to work, asked for some inspiration for the spots, and they had the brilliant idea of doing two colours. The pattern came together fairly easily, and is just adorable. I brought it with me the next Monday when we also celebrated her birthday. Two or three days later and the baby was born, everything was just in time. Serendipity.
With a little tailFluffy bellyBut quite compact
While I was making this first one however, I actually looked at the pattern image. It had a pastel-rainbow spotted giraffe on it. My first instinct was that ‘I can do that too!’, so I cut out a second giraffe at the same time as the first. It’s got bright rainbow spots on its side and some more blue/green spots on his head. Again, came together easily and practically at the same time as the orange one.
Blue giraffeWith rainbow spotsBig ears
This one is still hanging out at home until corona has cooled down enough again to bring him elsewhere. Not sure when that will ever be. It does feel like we are stuck in these corona-times for the foreseeable future again.
Fluffy feetLittle tail
Well, at least that means easy access to the sewing machine and the opportunity to make more little plushies. I know that there will be a pikachu in the future now that I’ve bought some yellow fluff-stuff!
The little magnetic sloth that can hang on nearly anything
I’ve now finished all the plushies I cut out that one Sunday some months ago. This last one is a sloth, again a free pattern from Sew Desu Ne / CholyKnight. I chose to use brown for his body and off-white for his face and his claws. This one is the largest of the free patterns that I’ve sewn up. I was almost debating putting a zip in his neck so he could be a bag. In the end, I figured he’d do better as a plush.
Don’t mind me,
I’m just hanging out
Put your hands up
It starts with fusing the face pieces and stitching those down. I sewed down the full face with a zigzag. He’s not completely symmetrical, but I think it gives him a little character. Next, the pattern asks for velcro on the claws for him to hang, but I wanted a more invisible solution so I opted for some magnets that I harvested from a broken fly-curtain. The claws require topstitching which turned out to be exactly wide enough to hold my magnets. Score!
Just sitting here
Sometimes I turn my back
My claws can be free
After that, you sew up the arms and legs while putting the claws in the middle. I forgot to read all the instructions and didn’t put any stuffing in his limbs. So he’s a little floppy in his extremities, but I’d already completely finished him before I figured that one out. Droopy he will stay. Because of his little magnet claws, you can hang him on nearly anything. In this case, I chose to use a giant L-square to demonstrate this. I think he’s pretty cute, and the cover images show sloths with longer fur that are a lovely option too!
While finishing up the hamster, I also finished up the shark. The shark is again a free pattern from Sew Desu Ne / CholyKnight. This mighty sea creature was an even easier sew than most other plushies, just sew two darts, stitch together three fins, align them in place, and sew 4 seams (back, two belly and a tail) and it’s done.
Raaawr!
I’m coming to get you..
Beware of my massive chompers
The only thing that caused a little bit of trouble was his giant mouth. The iron on teeth are formed from a moon shaped piece with triangle sewing. I wanted to stitch the teeth before I put the mouth piece on, but at the first try the thread managed to catch and pull. So I switched tactics and put some paper under the mouth so I could sew beyond the edge without difficulties. This solved the problem and the mouth was soon affixed to his underside.
Surface view
Look at my tail
Noodling along
In the end, it was very easy to create the shark and I do like him a lot. You can’t necessarily see his teeth when he’s just laying down, but that just means he’s got a fun surprise when you pick him up, right?
This little hamster won’t stay upright but he’ll stay cute
In direct contrast to my last post, I only managed to keep the plushy draught to two days.
The thing is.. I’ve been wanting to knit for the last couple of evenings, but the project I want to knit is the starry night sweater. I only have one ball left and half of the front and half of the back to complete. One ball will not be enough for that. So at the end of June I ordered more yarn in hopes that I can dye some more starry night shades and get my sweater finished. The yarn was bought in the UK which is now no longer in the EU so I figured it might take a little while, but after three full weeks there still was no word on my package which was shipped July 1st. I sent a message and received a tracking number which states that my package is being held hostage by immigration. I’m fine with paying VAT on it, which I think is what this is about, but they do need to inform me if that’s the case, which they haven’t done. The tracking info states that it’s ok to be released to my local post office on the 16th (!) and also that the package service still has not received it. You can imagine my dismay that the package which I’ve been waiting for is still in some sort of limbo. Aargh. We’ll see what next week brings.
Side
Front
Side
While waiting for my package, I did want to do something while binge watching Bones and I settled on fusing the faces of the three plushies I still have cut. So the hamster got its face, the shark got its eyes and teeth and the sloth got its face too. I started some sewing but mostly continued the next day by stitching some faces down.
Bottom
Top
Back
The first one that was finished was the free Hamster/Chinchilla pattern from Sew Desu Ne / Choly Knight. I chose to make the hamster because I was intrigued by the head. It has tiny cheek darts to give him an even fuller face. The instructions were very meticulous about sewing the irregular face shapes together. However, I decided to chuck those out the window and just sew it down in one fell swoop. It’s decent enough I think. I really like his little cross features even if it needed to be pink, my least favourite colour.
He’s got a poly-pellet pouch in his bottom but I didn’t fill it enough to offset his giant head so he regularly tips over. If you actively squash him down on a flat surface, he’ll stay upright, so that’s been the method so far. Sewing went smoothly, no picking out or wrong bastes. I guess some focus does help!
After some serious trials and tribulations, a tomato frog joins the tribe
When you try to make a cute little frog plush and it fights you every step of the way. That was my experience at least. As usual it’s a free pattern from Sew Desu Ne / CholyKnight aptly named Frog. I’m fairly certain my issues had nothing to do with the actual pattern, but more with fabric choice and not paying enough attention.
Anyway, I wanted to make a red frog and then googled to see if they exist and found the Tomato Frog. Perfect name for a red frog. They seem to have light coloured bellies, so I chose the off-white for that. All the pieces got cut out (so far, so decent). I stuck on the eyes which took a few tries and the nostrils, and I’m fairly certain that by that point the head-bits got stretched out of shape (friggin’ frog moment 1). I recut them and sewed all the possible red bits together. I then chucked the frog in a corner for a few weeks because I didn’t own any more red thread. Then I lost one of the feet (friggin’ frog moment 2) only to remember that it might be in my bag for when I went out to buy matching thread.
Left
Head on
Right
Yesterday, I finally got the courage to get going on the frog again. You see, this frog requires visible topstitching for its feet and this fabric does not want to show stitching. In the end, I sat down and hand sewed some toes. Then used long bent tweezers to stuff the toes so that there was some definition. To get some more effect, I even trimmed the webbed bits to see if it would help. I then had to attach the legs to the body. The one side went fine, the other side I basted in place a whopping 4 times (friggin’ frog moment 3) because I first put it in the wrong place – there was a notch?, then upside down twice before finally figuring out how to do it. Going back to the first failed baste.. Why was there a notch on the head?! Turns out, I stitched the head together wrong (friggin’ frog moment 4) and spent the next 45 minutes picking out tiny stitches.
Top
Bottom
Back or I’m not speaking to you!
After putting the head back on correctly, and attaching the belly the remainder went well. Just some stuffing to do after all and sewing a frog’s butt closed. While working on the back legs, I kept wondering how someone can think in 3D shapes in such a way to make one ‘moon-shaped’ pattern piece resemble an entire back leg of a frog and I decided to just be in awe. I don’t love this one nearly as much as some of the others. Which is ok, not everyone can be on top. I still have a few more plushies cut out, but I’m probably going to leave them cut and unsewn for a while. We’ll see where the sewing machine and mood take me.
Hopefully Creative 