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. Buy now – directly from me 🐱

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 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.

The pattern for this cartoonish and woolly crochet mole you can find in my shop at Ravelry, Etsy or you can order it directly from me with the link below.

This pattern has a permanent discount if you use this link. Patterns purchased directly from me cost 5,00 eur. I will have to email the pattern manually so it can take a bit longer, but I promise, you’ll have it in a day. If not, check your spam and if it is not there either, message me to wake me up, as I might have fallen asleep or something

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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!

 

Art

Next little doll

Sonja

Mollen

A year ago, I made many illustrations for an assignment. In the end, sadly the project was cancelled and it left me with plentiful lovely illustrations of animals. The one above was my favourite and inspired me to make a crochet version of that adult mole someday.

Usually I post a sketch or a simple watercolour of the animal for my next project, but this time this illustration will be my guideline.

I hope everyone is enjoying summer, just like these little moles and ants.

 

Patterns

Bodo, crochet red panda pattern

Sonja

And here is Bodo, a sturdy and woolly crochet red panda.

red panda amigurumi, crochet red panda

This red panda amigurumi has turned out exactly as I hoped. I absolutely love the result and am very proud to share this pattern. Buy now – directly from me 🐱

For this crochet animal, using the right colours was very important to me. I only wanted to use three colours of yarn, so I had to make compromises in the design. Should I give him dark cheeks, or rust ones? And the tail, dark striped or white? I looked at many red panda pictures online and decided a face with dark cheeks was most characteristic.

As everyone knows, red pandas have a very recognisable tail. It has a dark tip and light stripes. However, the stripes are not as white as the white in the face and ears, so especially this part was a bit hard to do in my three colours. Initially I thought of making a dark striped tail but that didn’t work out. Bodo looked in whole with that tail, far too dark. I imagined a tail with white stripes would look too light, so I decided to combine two rounds of rust, with one round of white, and it had an amazing result. The white doesn’t look too bright and the result is very striking.

Bodo is 5,1 inch/ 13 cm tall when sitting. He’s made with a 100% wool, called Lett Lopi. I strongly recommend the use of a wooly or fuzzy yarn, because that gives a very smooth result if you work in multiple colours.

Here is another picture of Bodo and below it you can find info and links to the crochet pattern.

crochet red panda doll, crochet animal pattern

Where to get the pattern

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. The colour changes for the face are written down in the stitch colours, to make changing colour extra easy. In the pattern you can find what materials you need, the Lopi colour numbers, in short, everything you need to know to make this wild friend.

The pattern for this sturdy and woolly crochet red panda you can find in my shop at Ravelry, Etsy or you can order it directly from me with the link below.

This pattern has a permanent discount if you use this link. Patterns purchased directly from me cost 5,00 eur. I will have to email the pattern manually so it can take a bit longer, but I promise, you’ll have it in a day. If not, check your spam and if it is not there either, message me to wake me up, as I might have fallen asleep or something…

Art, Stories

A red one

Sonja

Hello! I already mentioned in my previous post my next project was going to be a red panda and I was trying out a new look for this animal. After some shaping experiments I wasn’t happy at all about the results. It wasn’t a doll anymore and it felt like I kind of abandoned my own style. Furthermore, everybody I told I was going to try something different replied with a big ‘why?’

So, a red panda playful & happy doll it will be!

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