Tag: wildlife

Patterns

Floro, crochet red squirrel pattern

Sonja

This one looks familiar! Meet Floro 2, the new version of my crochet squirrel amigurumi.

amigurumi squirrel animal

Floro the crochet squirrel has always been one my personal best-liked patterns. Together with badgers, red squirrels are my favourite animals. I’ve had the jolly pleasure to seeing them very often and they are such graceful little characters. I love how they wave their tail when seeing other squirrels and their sneaky attitude when it comes to hiding food. They are ever so entertaining to watch.

Because Floro was one of the first animal patterns I designed, he did not meet up to my recents standards. When I looked at him lately, I only saw what could look better. I decided he needed a makeover.

What has changed with Floro?

First of all, I wanted his head to be easier to make. There is nothing wrong with sewn on muzzles, but with heads shaped like Floro’s there is no need to anymore now I have improved my skills for that. I am able to crochet the muzzle and head in one piece and still have a muzzle shaped little snout. Also, the big eye patches did not seem to work for everyone. I had made Floro’s as small as possible, but it still looked a bit as if he was staring in utter surprise. The eye patches have been replaced by much more subtle lines around the eyes you can easily embroider in four stitches. I also replaced the ears for flat folded ears.

The body has also changed. It has an improved shape and a rounder white belly. The last thing I changed is the tail. I wanted it to look curved by itself, without the need of inserting pipe cleaners to bend it. It now consists of two pieces that make a lovely curved tail.

I am so happy with the result. Floro still is the same, but looks much better! And the good thing is, anyone who has bought the previous pattern, will receive a message about this update with a download link to download the new version for free.

Here are some more pictures of my lovely crochet squirrel and below them you can find info about and links to buy the pattern if you do not have it yet.

Info about & links to buy the pattern

This crochet red squirrel is made with Istex Lett Lopi, a 100% wool with a lot of fuzziness that works very well with brushing. Floro is sitting 6 inch / 15 cm, when made with worsted weight yarn.

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 graceful squirrel amigurumi. All the additional information you need to know about this pattern you can find in the shop listings. You can buy this pattern in my shop at Ravelry, Etsy or order it here.

Despite this being an update, the new pattern has a one dollar release discount till Monday the 26th of February.

Note: Floro’s original post will stay on my blog until google has indexed this one.

Art, Chit and Chat, Uncategorized

A phase

Sonja

When I look at all the patterns I have made so far, I am quite proud of each and every one of them. Look at them, so many (and I even forgot a few), that is about three years of designing in that picture!

amigurumi patterns

But lately I’ve been so critical about my designs that I am having a hard time finishing them. This must be something every designer goes through every once and a while. Maybe it is just the soggy weather and the grey of winter that makes me judge my work differently.

It started when I was working on my tortoise pattern. I made this gorgeous looking shell, that would be a bit difficult to assemble. And because I couldn’t write it down perfectly scientifically, I had to re-think it so I fooled around with it for a while and did not enjoy it. Then I saw this picture of a gorgeous looking American red squirrel and decided I was going to set aside the tortoise and make a new squirrel that made me all excited. I started all enthusiastic but soon afterwards doubted every part I made. I guess designing the realistic animals got me into this phase. Because now, when I’m designing a doll, I’m not sure anymore how realistic it should look. These crochet animals must look like the real animal for sure, but they also should be a bit more whimsical and playful looking, well you’ve just seen my Popkes. When I look at my sweet little squirrel face, I’m thinking ‘isn’t this looking too complicated?’ or ‘isn’t this head too small, should I make a more round and basic head?’. It’s annoying, I’m doubting my every move, while I can clearly see what I came up with isn’t looking bad at all.

The best thing to do is to just keep working on it. Today I made a very smart looking tail, which doesn’t need pipe cleaners in it to make it look bended. And the body I made has a very formidable looking light belly, so I suppose I am just being a bit too hard on myself. I will just continue working on this sweetie and assemble a prototype. When that is finished I can decide if I find this squirrel whimsical and characteristic enough and if anything needs to be changed.

Yes, that is a good plan. See you when it is finished dear crafters!

Art, Stories

A very special project

Sonja

This fresh new year, I am starting with a very special project. I am making the pattern for a fossilised monkey. And it is not even that simple, the monkey I am making is a prosimian or a lemur monkey. The researchers are not completely sure about it. This monkey, called Ida (based on Darwin’s name), died 47 million years ago and was found in Messel, Germany.

monkWhy am I making a fossilised monkey that lived 47 million years ago? To be honest, I’m not really a monkey fan. They just aren’t my kind of animals. I do love some lemurs and prosimians and please don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike monkeys, but they aren’t on my list of cute and cuddly things that make me feel all happy like when I see a guinea pig, fox or squirrel.

But this Ida monkey does! This was the cutest and most beautiful monkey ever. A friend of mine, who is a wildlife and paleo artist, made the most fabulous illustrations for a book about Ida. Because Ida was so very well preserved, Esther could draw her exactly as she looked, except for the colours. They couldn’t see those from the fossil so she had to chose the most likely colours. And how she portraid Ida, I was in love with her from the start! She made the monkey look so gorgeous and exotic.

Ida is a lemur or prosimian monkey and has this specific type of body. I really like the shape of her head and flexible form. She is perfect for the monkey I like to make. The coloured illustration you see is one of the illustrations Esther made for the book. Ida is the baby monkey carried by the mother.

idaEsther has asked me before if I could make an Ida monkey, but I never wanted to because it doesn’t exist anymore and therefor crafters won’t recognise the crochet monkey. But lately I was thinking about making a hanging monkey and got stuck on which type. I asked Ether if she knew an extra cute one and of course she said I should make the Ida monkey. I wasn’t sure about it at first but the more I thought about it, the less unlikely it felt. Why wouldn’t I make a pattern for this type of monkey? Ida is absolutely gorgeous and If I design a hanging Ida monkey, I bet many crocheters would just love it. The colours can easily be replaced for colours of existing monkeys if one prefers so what’s the problem. It was done. I was making a fossilised monkey as first project of the year! Now to think of a suitable name…

 

Stories

For wildlife lovers….

Sonja

I’ve just discovered a very useful source of great inspiration for badger crochet: Simon King’s badger fox feeder cam. It’s absolutely amazing, you can see badgers, sometimes eight at a time, eating and playing live! It’s almost like your there. Foxes visit too. Look at this!

Screen Shot 2013-09-08 at 00.45.50

I already got a lot of good info about badger features because of this cam. I never realized a badgers head is dark at the bottom. A bit silly because it’s quite logical, but you just don’t see it in most badger pics and I was too focused on the dark stripes of the face. This unfortunately did meant I had to make another head. It’s finished now though.

Enjoy the cams! I’ve spotted the badgers from around 9.30 PM till late in the night, European time.

 

Art, Stories

Look, it’s a ……..

Sonja

I had this lovely afternoon in the forest, taking pictures of my new crochet animal, surrounded by wildlife. There were lots of birds and young chicks chatting around me, bumblebees were zooming cheerfully above the ground and, a red squirrel was laughing at me from behind a tree. 

Floro's-habitat

I finally managed to get a sharp picture of a squirrel, didn’t I!

While busy taking pictures of Floro and clacking away mosquitoes, I heard this strange sound behind me. Suddenly I realized that THAT’s a squirrel sound! So I turned around and saw a red squirrel spying on me from a tree. When he saw me turning around he quickly fled higher so I couldn’t see him anymore. I waited a few minutes, while being eaten, but saw him no more. A pitty, I hoped to get a picture of him, you know, me taking pictures of Floro and the squirrel who spied on us….Would be so perfect.

Well anyway, here’s a first glimpse of Floro, the pattern will be available in my shop on thursday!