I'm Still Here!

I'm sorry I've been gone for so long. I've missed blogging, and though I've been reading my favorite blogs, I haven't been reading them as often as I'd like. Things have been busy and crazy and I just haven't been knitting much. I have finished a couple of projects, I've frogged a couple of projects, and I'm kind of just feeling the knitting blahs at the moment.

Anyway, I do have some photos to show: I finished a little crochet toy from a pattern by Owlishly, available on Ravelry as a Ravelry download. I modified the Scott pattern to resemble Diego whom my wee Mole adores. Truth be told, he prefers Dora (as evidenced by his calling out "Dora!" whenever he sees some Dora paraphernalia and singing the Dora theme song to himself as he rides along in a stroller or on my back in a baby carrier. However, I was afraid of making Dora's hair, so I attempted Diego first.



I made a crochet loop wig cap and cut the loops. i tried to cut them unevenly to make Diego’s spikey hair but I fear it simply looks uneven. I gave him shorts and modified the stitch count a little to make the short legs wider than the calf. I also added socks and made a little vest and rescue pack.

I am a VERY novice hooker and the Scott pattern is extremely easy to follow. My only problems with this are due to my inexperience - I’m tense, it’s tight, and hard to poke the hook through the holes. Also, the yarns are two different materials - cotton and wool - and thus have different amounts of give. They are also slightly different weights, and I don’t know enough about crochet gauge to adjust properly with hook/stitch count so i just barreled on through with the same hook size (except for the back pack which was a significantly thinner yarn and didn’t need to join with the other yarns so i downsized.)
I made this as a “test” before i plunged into another Owlishly pattern, Seth, which is the one I really want to make. I thought starting smaller would be a good first attempt but really I think the larger doll will be easier. I had trouble with the tiny little arms. they’re kind of a mess and i just sort of winged them in the end because i couldn’t find the actual stitches a lot of the time.

I used safety eyes and embroidered a small mouth but if my kid doesn’t accept it as Diego I might cut more accurate pieces from flannel and stitch them on, as I did with Dora's backpack.