The crochet red squirrel pattern is beginning to take shape. I’m very glad it is, because I was a bit worried.
And here are some high quality, beautiful pictures of red squirrels I took. Well, maybe two, or one….Enjoy.
LOL!
These pictures could have been so beautiful! But, it’s not about the pictures, I loved watching these squirrels and the pictures are just blurry reminders of those moments.
F0r a while now I’m working on the crochet red squirrel pattern, in my head and on paper that is, and I decided to post this sloppy sketch. I can’t get a clear representation in my head of how I want the squirrel to look. I have ideas, but am not sure it will work out in crochet. I tried to make the perfect example drawing but I’m just not able to because of these little doubts.
My boyfriend commented on the drawings, about them being too serious and said: ‘draw the kind of squirrel you see, without the hips and realistic features’. So, I drew this sloppy sketch in a few seconds and it’s the best image of the idea in my head, funny how it works….
I’m just going to start crocheting the squirrel now, based on my ideas. My squirrel has to become a lively fellow, not the sitting kind you see all around. That is the typical squirrel position, but to me squirrels are lively, speedy, wild little beasties. I know my popkes don’t look particularly wild and speedy, but they are lively. The squirrel will have that doll-ish feature, but has to be an original addition. I’m always careful to not make my popkes to similar, they have to represent the animal they are and be original at the same time. The doll shape however has my preference for that, because it makes the animals flexible.
This post is a renewed version of an older post of mine. Because I developed new skills and discovered more techniques, I found the old expression post to be a bit outdated. In this post I’ll explain how I design a crochet animal face.
One of the most challenging elements in making crochet dolls is giving them the right expression. That’s what finishes the doll and can make it either beautiful and striking or kind of ridiculous looking. Making the face is complicated and comes very closely, even though it seems quite simple, just a few stitches right? It usually takes me a while and I have to ‘take it out’ a few times before my doll has the right expression. Here are a few samples of faces I’ve made so far. Below the images I’ll explain how I get the right expression.
1. Curious crochet rabbit.
2. Surprised playful kitty.
3. Calm crochet wolf.
5. A happy rabbit.
6. Dazed, funny bear.
1. A patch behind the eyes makes him look more like a wild bunny. The starting chain forms his mouth.
2. A playful cat needs wide eyes, so a felt patch behind the eyes. He also has a perplexed little mouth, like real cats.
3. Wolfs have a brighter spot above their eyes. For this crochet wolf I decided to add a small thread to create that wolf expression.
4. Starfox really has a sturdy expression, he also has green eyes. So I made a felt patch, black lashes and big white eyebrows.
5. This is a very happy brown eyed bunny. Just the eyes looked a bit dull I decided. So he has felt patches behind his eyes and a cheerful embroidered mouth.
6. I wanted to give this crochet bear a funny looking face. To get that expression I made his mouth unsymmetrical.
To give my Popke the right expression, I play a little with the embroidery thread. A symmetric mouth for example gives a neat look, but maybe not the right one. The distance between the eyes is also very important. A description of how to set them, I don’t think will help much, you just have to experiment on each and every doll you make. There are some rules, like far apart is cute and close together not very smart looking, but I tend to ignore those rules and just see what looks best for a particular doll. The tip in this topic is therefore, don’t underestimate the importance of the expression. Take your time and experiment. If you’re not satisfied after trying many times, just stop and try again the next day or so, when you’re fresh again. That usually does the trick for me.
And another small tip, it’s very important to see for yourself and experiment on your version of a Popke. Maybe you don’t like the felt patch for your lop rabbit or the white eyebrow on your wolf. Just rock out and do what you like.
I’m sorry for the lack of interesting posts for the last two weeks. We are having a spring holiday in the Netherlands and we decided to go and enjoy the rising green in our environment. The autumn is my favorite season, but the spring makes a good second. This year we were really longing for green after a cold, grey and longer winter.
Next week I’m back to business. I’ve got two ideas for tips & tricks posts and I’m going to start on a crochet squirrel pattern. (We saw a cute’sy squirrel climbing a tree carrying nesting material!)
My favorite moment of designing crochet patterns is when my new doll is finished and I can take pictures of him. It’s so much fun to do, playing with my fuzzy new friend and I can see the finished project for the first time with a fresh view. After a long time working on a project, I become sort of over-critical and can’t see clearly how it looks anymore. But when the pictures are finished I get all happy and proud.
So, I present Balloo, my crochet sheep pattern. I called him Balloo, because he’s based on sheep from Drenthe and there is a big hurdle of these sheep in the surroundings of the village Balloo, nearby where I live. And actually, Balloo is a crochet lamb, not a sheep yet.
The Balloo crochet sheep pattern is available in my Ravelry shop, Etsy shop and you can also order the pattern directly from me here. It is written in standard American crochet terms. This crochet sheep is made with Istex Lett Lopi, a 100% yarn. Balloo is 5.6 inch / 14.5 cm when sitting. He’s very soft and cuddly.
The pattern contains a clear and colour coded description of how to crochet and assemble this animal, with extra illustrations and example pictures at the bottom to help you get everything right. In the pattern you can also find what materials you need, the yarn colour numbers, in short, everything you need to know to make your own fuzzy lamb amigurumi. All the additional information you need to know about this pattern you can find in the shop listings.
In this post I’m going to explain the importance of stuffing and shaping amigurumi. Because if you do this carefully, it can make a lot of difference to the end result.
Let’s start with stuffing. When I stuff a crochet animal head, I start by putting in a piece of fiberfill, from which I know it’ll cover the inside of the head, but isn’t yet enough to fill the complete head. When the fiberfill is inside, I push it outwards, so all sides now are covered with a layer of fiberfill. That leaves a hole in the filling. Carefully I add more fiberfill in the remaining hole, still pushing it a little outwards till the entire head it stuffed. If you want a piece to stay in a certain shape, stuff it tighter. And also keep in mind the stuffing will ‘shrink’ a bit after some time so always use enough. I stuff heads a bit more firm than bodies.
Now the shaping part.
While stuffing, I also shape. To illustrate this, I’ve used the fox and wolf heads as an example. Their basic shape is the same, only the wolf has bigger cheeks. The stitches are different at the chin of the wolf, but that doesn’t matter for what I’m trying to explain. What I mean is, you can make a round shape round like a ball, but that same shape, you can also make flatter. The wolf needed to have a wider, less rounder shape. So, while stuffing, I made sure the cheeks stood out and I also made the head flatter by pushing the stuffing more to the sides and pinching the head a bit flatter, so it wouldn’t be round. You can see that in the image. I keep everything a bit soft but firm, it should never feel hard. The wolf I stuffed firmer than the fox, because I shaped the head.
This is the way I do it and it seemed useful to explain here.
My header and blog icon has changed again. There are a few reasons for that change.
First of all, I missed my happy cat! Another important reason is, when I started using Flam the fox as my ‘logo’, Â it didn’t feel right. Suddenly I realized that having a neutral icon is better than an existing doll. Especially when someone bought a Flam the fox pattern, it made me doubt my decision.
Also, I got some feedback form people whose opinion I value, who liked the cat better.
The funny thing is, I had to make the change before I realized this, because I was convinced I needed and existing doll as icon. Now it’s all good.
Thanks for understanding this silliness.
p.s. The sheep head is finished and he’s all cuddly, hehe.
The next animal I will make in crochet is a sheep. Fits spring I think. I’ve made a simple sketch of how the sheep should look, but some things I have to decide while making him. Like will the head have wool on it and also will the arms and legs have wool on them? I’m not sure yet, looks good in the sketch but I’m not sure it will also look good on the actual doll. So that’ll be a surprise 🙂
I hope I’ll have him finished in about two weeks. Past week I was working on my Sons Popkes business card, something I didn’t have yet. The card gave me more trouble than I expected, because I had a hard time deciding which one to use….I made a few. I now have an email signature card with Flam on it, like my blog icon. My Dutch card has an image of Finse on it and the international card has Trin on it.
The card is finished now so I can put my full attention back to crocheting. I’m back here later this week with a post about shaping amigurumi’s.
sonspopkes.com 