This week I can finally release a long expected pattern and what a bliss it is. I finished my wooly puffin bird last week and celebrated it with this outdoor picture. What a happy puffin!
Thank you everybody, for all your enthusiastic and encouraging messages. I have never gotten so many request for a pattern before it was released. Just a few more days and you can all start making your own puffin!
The Popkes and I risked a heath stroke this afternoon, doing a photoshoot outside whilst it was 35 degrees celsius! Admitting, it was probably just me getting a bit over heated, they seemed to rather enjoy themselves really.
What a thrill, my summer holiday has almost started! Just relaxing, watching wildlife and doing long forest strolls are the things I am looking forward to so much.
I had to postpone the puffin pattern a bit, but not to worry. I think during all the relaxing and wildlife watching, I probably cannot stop myself from working on it every now and then. The puffin pattern will be the first pattern to be released.
I hope everybody is enjoying themselves as much as my crochet animals in the picture above. I wish all of you a lovely summer, cheers and see you soon!
My glorious crochet tiger pattern is finished. Meet Koji!
This was beyond doubt the most ambitious crochet animal I have made so far. Yet, knowing that from the start, I was ever so excited to make a crochet tiger. I fully accepted I probably had to make many more test pieces than usual, but I knew that in the end it would be worth it. Well, at least I hoped it would be!
Making a crochet version of a complexed coloured animal like a tiger, comes with many dilemmas. I always fancy my animals to look as realistic as possible, but with a tiger, I knew I had to make some compromises. Certain characteristics of a tiger just are impossible to recreate in a small crochet version. For instance, a tiger’s face has many stripes, going in different directions. I only had room for two stripes at the top of the head and two at the sides. I had to find the right look for my simple stripes, to get that classic tiger face. Also, tiger ears are quite striking with light orange fuzzy front sides and dark backs with a white spot. But there was no way I could make a simple crochet version of such small ears, coloured like that.
Essentially, the whole proces went like that. Should I let the dark stripes of the body run over into the white belly? Nope, did not look good at all whatever I tried. Tigers have orange toes, black soles and white hair between the toes. What should I do to make that look best? Many questions like these followed, but it was very rewarding every time I found a good solution.
Koji has become a striking tiger doll. I think he looks playful, but also shows a bit of that tiger wisdom. Personally, I think he looks young and sweet in the first picture and more wise and mature in the picture below, that is really curious isn’t it!
Here is another picture of Koji and below it you can find info about and links to the pattern.
This crochet tiger is 5,8 inch / 14,8 cm when sitting. I spend a lot of time writing an extra easy pattern to make this animal. There is a lot of colour changing, so I added a bit more info about it and wrote the pattern for the head and body in stitch colour, so you can even see from the lines how your rounds of stitches should look. Koji is made with three colours of lett lopi, a 100% wool. I would strongly advice the use of a fuzzy yarn, as it leaves much neater colour changes.
The pattern for this beautiful animal, you can find in my shop at Ravelry, Etsy or order it here. It contains a clear description of how to crochet and attach the tiger with example pictures at the bottom to help you get everything right. In the pattern you can also find what materials you need, the Lopi colour numbers, in short, everything you need to know to make this glorious animal.
And heads up, the pattern has a one dollar release discount till April the 12th.
And I am celebrating it with two special spring & Easter offers. Aren’t they the cutest crochet animal couples!
These pictures I specially made for my spring and Easter offers. Both packs contain the patterns for the two animals in the picture and the pattern for the Easter eggs and basket is included in the rabbit pattern. You can find the packs in my shop. Unfortunately I couldn’t offer them in my Ravelry shop, as they rejected the listings. You can of course order them directly from me also. Let me know which pack you would like to purchase and I’ll send you a Paypal request. The packs cost $9,98 and they are available till good Friday.
It always is a delight to photograph my crochet animals. I prefer to use daylight and I do, but it can be a bit dark in my home studio. I do my very best to capture both the light and the animals at their best. I love dramatic shadows, but for these photographs there has to be a good balance.
*pattern update* My tiger pattern is coming along very well and I’m looking forward to share some first glimpses of the head.
Enjoy spring!
Back, when I was in the holiday cottage, I tried to take some interesting pictures of Bunsie. I thought the result was not very exciting, but when looking through the pictures yesterday, this one caught my eye. Recurring visitors might recognize this bush as the bush in the drawing of the actual event. This is the bush the polecat ran past and I felt like sharing it.
Also, I wanted to give you a heads up about my upcoming pattern. A crochet tiger pattern. Some of you might think, ‘but that one wasn’t on your list’ and you are right dear reader. A while ago I joked to myself that if a certain person would see a tiger on his trip to India, I would make a crochet version. Later on I found it a rather silly idea, as tigers are more than just complicated to make in crochet. But the longer I thought about it and looked at pictures of this gorgeous animal, I decided it was not such a bad idea at all, and he did see a tiger. I definitely wanted to make a tiger, and a very good one! Now let’s hope I can succeed…
We are having this terribly dreadful winter, it rains, rains and rains, but the weekend after I had finished Lumi, some snow did fall. I gladly took that opportunity to make some nice pictures.
Enjoy your winter! I hope mine will get colder!
Note: I am already working on a new project, something a bit different and will tell more about that next week.
Lumi is finished and he turned out ever so cuddly and soft. I wanted this crochet arctic fox to feel and look soft, but not to have a completely fuzzy appearance. To get this result, I first brushed him, and then cut off all the long hairs, which gave the exact result I hoped for. You can still see the crochet stitches, but Lumi looks furry too.
Working on this arctic fox felt a bit odd from time to time, as I already designed a red fox in the past. I absolutely did not want this fox to look the same, but that seemed to be a bit inevitable, as they both are foxes and I do prefer my designs to have that realistic touch. Luckily, there are some major differences in the foxes and my fox patterns are vey different in shape and sizes although they look like cousins. This fox feels younger to me, whilst he also is more compact. Lumi has a very sweet appearance and I love his subtile colour changes.
Below the pictures of dear Lumi, you can find info and links to the arctic fox crochet pattern.
I choose to make this crochet arctic fox in two colours. A warm grey for the paws and edges of the ears and a milky white for the rest of the body. However, this fox would also look very good in just white. Lumi is made with Lett Lopi, a 100% wool. It is easy to brush and gets a very soft result, but acrylic yarns also look good when brushed. Lumi is sitting 5,5 inch / 14 cm tall.
The pattern for this utterly soft arctic fox, you can find in my shop at Ravelry, Etsy or order it here. It 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 also find what materials you need, the Lopi colour numbers, in short, everything you need to know to make this furry little friend.
And heads up, the pattern has a one dollar release discount till Januari the 29th.
Every year, I make a Christmas card. Before I started Son’s Popkes, I used to paint humoristic illustrations of Santa having bad luck. Now, with Son’s Popkes, I have this fabulous new subject, my crochet animals. This year I thought long of what to paint. At some point I started thinking of taking some nice pictures, because I still hadn’t got the right idea for an illustration.
But then the idea finally was there. What about ice skating Popkes? That was a very fine idea indeed, so I started to sketch about and after some time I finished this Christmas card.
The painting is titled ‘A Popkes winter wonderland’ and is painted with acrylic paint on an 18 x 24 cm canvas board. I’ve grown very fond of this painted version of Falun, he looks so utterly adorable.
My Christmas holiday has started now. I’m going to enjoy it by finishing the book I’m reading, Roald Dahl’s ‘Going Solo’. My boyfriend and I like to go hiking in this wintery weather and in the evenings we will be watching our favourite movies. I always look forward to this time of year and wish you all a jolly good Christmas and a happy New Year!
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!
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.
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!
sonspopkes.com 