Patterns

Son’s Popkes pattern pack

Sonja

The Son’s Popkes pattern pack is a permanent offer that allows you to buy any three patterns and get a fourth pattern for free.

It works like this: buy three patterns at once in my shop at Ravelry or LoveCrochet and send me a message to let me know which pattern you would like to have as the fourth. I’ll always email you the fourth free pattern within 12 hours.

In my Etsy shop you can simply purchase the pattern pack listing and let me know there which four patterns you want. You can also purchase the pattern pack by ordering the patterns directly from me here.

Happy crocheting! Feel free to leave a comment here to let others know how your order went.

Art

It’s Halloween!

Sonja

crochet-teddy-witch-hat-

Unfortunately Halloween is not celebrated in the Netherlands but I always loved to pay some attention to it, mostly by making spooky illustrations and the like.

These days of course I design Halloween themed crochet patterns, like Mr. Creeper, that witch hat Teddy is wearing and this year I designed a bat crochet pattern.

The patterns for both the Teddy bear and the witch hat you can find in the sidebar if you scroll down a bit.

Enjoy your wonderful Halloween!

 

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Floro and Finse’s wondrous autumn

Sonja

Every so often I feel like painting a picture, creating an image where everything is possible. My crochet animals are the perfect theme for these illustrations, as I can make them come alive in a fairytale world. For my ‘working self’ there is nothing more exhilarating than combining my work as an illustrator with my crochet designs like this. It is so much fun and inspirational.

‘Floro and Finse’s wondrous autumn’ is a seasonal Popkes painting, the third in a series of four illustrations. I previously made a winter and spring illustration featuring my crochet animals. A summer illustration should be next on my list, but as summer is my least favourite season that probably will take a while.

I thought it would be interesting to show you a slideshow of the process of making this illustration. As you can see, blue is my white and the painting slowly gets its full colour.

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It is no surprise to me that this illustration is my best loved so far, as autumn is my dearest season, it is those colours!

 

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My Autumn

Sonja

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It has been a while since my last post. I have been fairly busy working on an autumn painting and we have been on a holiday to Zuid Limburg, the most southern province of the Netherlands. We stayed in a very basic holiday house but the surroundings where astonishing. The part of the Netherlands where I live is utterly flat but Limburg consists of beautiful hills. We enjoyed many hikes through the countryside and also visited parts of the Eifel in Germany, where the hills gradually change into mountains and where autumn has almost reached its full glory. It was such a beautiful holiday and I honestly miss those beautiful hills.

Here are some more pictures.

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This week I will continue working on my painting and when it is finished, I am going to start on my upcoming crochet pattern, a lynx. I’ll keep you posted about the progress.

Enjoy autumn!

 

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Brutus, crochet bat pattern

Sonja

bat crochet pattern, flying fox, fruit bat amigurumi

My crochet bat pattern is finished and what a lovely little scoundrel Brutus has become. I’ve called him Brutus, it sounded fun for a sweet looking bat.

Brutus is a very versatile crochet bat. He can both stand and sit and if you like a flying bat, you can have him hoover above your bed. This cool crochet bat can even close his wings when he goes to sleep, like this.

crochet bat pattern

When I designed this bat amigurumi, I had to keep in mind the size of the wings. To prevent him from becoming a huge doll, I made his body and head just a bit smaller than usual, so the eventual bat would have a pleasant size. Brutus has a span width of 10.2 inch/ 26 cm and is sitting 5.9 inch/ 15 cm tall.

For my crochet bat, I chose to give him thin and flexible wings, which can be folded and played with. For those of you who want to make a hanging flying bat, I would recommend to make the wings double, so they are more steady and will not curl. All is explained in the pattern of course.

Info about this crochet bat pattern.

The pattern for this cool crochet bat you can find in my shop at Ravelry, Etsy or order it here.The pattern contains a clear description of how to crochet and attach the animal with example pictures at the bottom to help you get everything right. Crocheting this bat isn’t all that difficult, but sewing the pieces together does requirer some patience. Brutus is made with two colours of Lètt Lopi yarn, a pure wool. In the pattern you can find what materials you need, the Lopi colour numbers, in short, everything you need to know to make this mystical crochet animal.

crochet animal, animals, haakpatroon vleermuis, halloween.

Stories

A flying one

Sonja

Brutus-post1Currently I am working on my new project, a crochet bat. Every night, when I look out of our bedroom window, I see little bats flying around the courtyard, their wings lighted up by a single lamppost. It all looks so mystical.

As autumn is drawing nearer every day now, I have to get on with designing the bat pattern. As well as a bat makes a perfect autumn pattern, I want my bat to be ready in time for Halloween. That means, the pattern must be finished before October.

The bat I am making belongs to the group of ‘megabats’, which most of us know as fruit bats. The little bats I am seeing around my house aren’t megabats but microbats. They are insect eating small bats. However, for a crochet version I just find the fruit bats more suitable.

 

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Moser, a crochet mole pattern

Sonja

mole amigurumi, crochet mole pattern

He finally is finished, my crochet mole pattern. He is without doubt the most cartoonish looking crochet animal I have made so far. When I looked at the pictures in this post, I felt happy. Moser looks like a little digger and resembles a real mole, but he could as well be a character from a children’s book.

Moser2

When I designed him, I kept in mind that moles are not natures most loved creatures. I adore them nonetheless, but I knew I had to design this crochet mole doll in a special way.

To give him that extra bit of character he needed, I exaggerated the size of his arms and legs. Especially when I finished the big feet I saw what I was looking for, they made him a very funny looking crochet animal. When I started working on this crochet pattern, I was a little bit concerned about how I was going to design the fingers and toes. I had never made such shapes before but felt it was an absolute must to have fingers and toes. Surprisingly, it was much easier than I expected and fingers and toes are easy to crochet for all of us.

After a year or so, I decided to make Moser a very handy accessory, a miners safety helmet. It’s something moles can’t go without. I added the miners safety helmet to the pattern, so anyone make him with the cool helmet. Here are some more pictures of the crochet mole. Below them picture you can find more info about the pattern.

Info about the crochet mole pattern.

Moser is 4.6 inch / 11.5 cm tall standing, when made with a worsted weight yarn. I’ve used 5 mm animal safety eyes and needle felted a very pink nose. The pattern for this cartoonish and wooly crochet mole you can find in my shop at Ravelry, Etsy or order it here.The pattern contains a clear description of how to crochet and attach the animal with example pictures at the bottom to help you get everything right. In the pattern you can find what materials you need, the Lopi colour numbers, in short, everything you need to know to make this funny looking doll.

 

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Sheep along!

Sonja

crochet sheep, gehaakt sheep

Recently I started my Son’s Popkes crochet animals group at Ravelry. It is a group for everyone who enjoys making my patterns. When you join the group, you can get pattern support from me and each other, show your finished animals, participate in crochet alongs, meet interesting new people and much more.

For starters, I have organized a first crochet along, the sheep along. It is a little tribute to sheep, the providers of our most used and beloved material. It is a CAL to get to know the hows and whos.

After the sheep along, there will be a longer crochet along, the autumn along, where you can choose from multiple patterns.

Do you feel like crocheting animals in a nice group of people, getting some extra help and more? Please come and join my group at Ravely and crochet along!