Took a while to fig­ure this one out. I ini­tial­ly just want­ed to make a flat owl shape, but thought it would be nice to give it some tex­ture. I tried incor­po­rat­ing the v‑stitch but it did­n’t look quite right… so I thought I’d try the loop stitch again and I think it looks rather fluffy and cute! It looks like the loop stitch is becom­ing one of my favourites (I’ll have to show you a larg­er scale project that I just fin­ished, involv­ing hun­dreds of loop stitch­es). Hope you like it as much as I do!

By the way, I found a slight­ly dif­fer­ent way of mak­ing the loop stitch on We are Knit­ters, which seems a bit more secure. The video tuto­r­i­al can be viewed here (nice music too!).

So! The pattern!

I used:

Worsted weight yarn in 2 shades of yel­low and blue

3.5 mm hook

Nee­dles for sewing and embroidering

Blue and orange thread for embroi­der­ing beak and eyes

A bit of white felt for eyes

Two black round beads for eyes and black thread for sewing on eyes

Body front:

Notes: it’s worked from top to bot­tom to accom­mo­date the direc­tion of the loops, then reat­tach yarn to cro­chet the head. For the 2 dif­fer­ent shades in the body, MC is main colour and CC is con­trast­ing colour. Car­ry the colour that is not in use up the rows when switch­ing colours.

With MC, ch 8

Row 1: sc in 2nd ch from hook, sc in each ch across, turn.

Row 2: ch 1 (turn­ing ch 1 does not count as a st), lp st (loop stitch) in each sc across, turn.

Row 3: change to CC, ch 1, 2 sc in first st, sc in each st across until sec­ond last st, 2 sc in last sc, turn.

Row 4: ch 1, lp st in each sc across, turn.

Row 5: change to MC, ch 1, 1 sc in each st across, turn.

Row 6: ch 1, lp st in each sc across, turn.

Row 7: change to CC, ch 1, 2 sc tog over first 2 st, 1 sc in each st across until last 2 st, 2 sc tog over next 2 st, turn.

Row 8: ch 1, lp st in each sc across, turn.

Row 9: change to MC, ch 1, 2 sc tog over first 2 sc, 1 sc in each st across until last 2 st, 2 sc tog over next 2 sc, turn.

Row 10: ch 1, 1 sc in each sc across, fas­ten off.

Now we make the head.

With MC and wrong side fac­ing you, attach yarn to the first row of body.

Row 1: ch 1, 1 sc in each st across, turn.

Row 2: ch 2, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, 1 sc in each of the next 3 sc across, 3 sc in next sc, 1 sc in each of the next 3 sc across, ch 2, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, sl st in the bot­tom of last sc just made (i.e. in the first sc of pre­vi­ous row), fas­ten off.

Back:

Note: back is worked from bot­tom to top in one piece and with MC only.

ch 7

Row 1: ch 1, 1 sc in each ch across, turn.

Row 2: ch 1, 2 sc in first sc, 1 sc in each sc across until sec­ond last sc, 2 sc in last sc, turn.

Row 3: ch 1, 1 sc in each sc across, turn.

Row 4: Repeat row 2.

Row 5–7: Repeat row 3 (i.e. work even).

Row 8: ch 1, 2 sc tog over first 2 sc, 1 sc in each sc across until last 2 sc, 2 sc tog over last 2 sc, turn.

Row 9: ch 1, 1 sc in each sc across, turn.

Row 10: work even.

Row 11–12: Repeat rows 1–2 of head. Fas­ten off, leave long tail for sewing.

Wings (make 2):

Leave 3–4 inch­es of tail for sewing, ch 4

Row 1: 2 dc in 4th ch from hook, turn.

Row 2: ch 3 (turn­ing ch 3 counts as a stitch), 2 dc in next dc, dc in top of begin­ning ch 3, turn.

Row 3: ch 3, 3 dc tog over next 2 dc and top of turn­ing ch 3. Fas­ten off, leave 3–4″ of tail for sewing.

Assem­bly:

Cut 2 cir­cles for eyes. I cut mine about 1/2″ wide, but you can make them small­er or larg­er if you like. Owl plush­es with giant eyes are very cool-look­ing too.

Sew eyes on the head of owl with blue embroi­der thread, if you like that look.

Embroi­der beak.

Sew on black beads to com­plete eyes.

Sew front and back togeth­er. I made two small loops at each ear while sewing but that’s option­al. If you’re mak­ing an orna­ment you may also want to make a loop with a rib­bon and sand­wich it between the front and back and sew it all together.

Attach the wings by tying the yarn tail at the top of wings to the top cor­ners of the first row of loop stitch, and the bot­tom of the wing to the bot­tom cor­ners of the last row of body. This sounds more com­pli­cat­ed than it is — you will eas­i­ly get it by look­ing at the picture :)

And we’re done!

Here’s the owl and me with an owl shirt on :D

I love how fluffy he is :D

Would be fun to make it with dif­fer­ent colour com­bi­na­tions. And if I were to make anoth­er, I would prob­a­bly try to make the loops a bit smaller.

It would be so excit­ing to see the dif­fer­ent owls every­one makes!

Until next time — hap­py crafting!

 

“Today’s mighty oak is just yes­ter­day’s nut that held its ground.” ― David Icke

(and yikes, I have real­ly dry hands…)

 

3rd pat­tern in the 12 Days of Wood­land Crea­tures (and Their Favourite Things)! Today we have the squir­rels’ favourite things — Acorns!

The mighty acorn would make a mighty oak, or a mighty good snack for the wood­land crea­tures. Either way it’s going to do good :D

An extra small acorn makes a won­der­ful neck­lace. Sim­ply attach a jump ring at the top and put a chain through ‑ voila!

 

Fun~ So I thought I would write the pat­tern for both the mini acorn and the reg­u­lar acorn. They’re very sim­i­lar, just slight­ly dif­fer­ent stitch counts.

For the acorns I want­ed to use a sock weight yarn in my stash that has very rich shades of brown, so I’ve used small­er hooks. But if you’re using worsted weight yarn you can just use the 3.5 mm hook as usu­al, and you would end up with a slight­ly larg­er acorn.

I used:

Sock weight yarn in brown and green

2.25 mm hook

Scrap yarn for stuffing

Red embroi­dery thread (option­al)

Nee­dle for sewing and embroidering

Pat­tern:

Note: instruc­tions are for mini acorn [reg­u­lar acorn in square brackets]

Cap:

Round 1: ch 4, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, sl st in next ch (you’ve just made the stem), ch 1, 8 [10] sc in next ch, sl st in first sc to join.

We’re basi­cal­ly cro­chet­ing a cir­cle with the stem in the cen­tre, so when join­ing you will have to go behind/around the stem, like so…

 

Round 2: ch 2, dc in same sc as start­ing ch, *dc in next sc, 2 dc in next sc*, repeat from * to * to end, sl st in top of turn­ing ch 2 to join. Fas­ten off and leave a long tail for sewing.

Nut:

6 sc in mag­ic ring, do not join.

sc in first sc, *2 sc in next sc, sc in next sc*, repeat from * to * 2 [5] more times.

sc in each sc until piece is 3/4″ tall. Fas­ten off, weave in end.

Assem­bly:

If you’d like, embroi­der a heart on the acorn by mak­ing two lazy daisy stitch (here’s a great tuto­r­i­al for it). But the acorn would be just as awe­some if you leave it plain.

Stuff the acorn with scrap yarn. Sew the cap on the nut using the long tail left on the cap. Because it’s so small I just sew right through the acorn in a cross-man­ner all around, sewing through the bot­tom edge of the cap and top edge of the nut, being care­ful not to pull too tight so the acorn would keep its plump shape.

And here we are! I made dif­fer­ent colours :D

 

They would make great pins with mini pin backs attached on the back. I think they would also make great hang­ing orna­ments on the tree or by the win­dow. You can also skip stuff­ing the acorn nut, squash the cap and acorn flat, then sew them togeth­er to make an applique.

Hope you enjoy the acorn pat­tern! Hap­py Mon­day! :D

 

Well, at least on this blog anyway ;)

Here comes the sec­ond pat­tern for the 12 Days of Wood­land Crea­tures (and Their Favourite Things)! To the awe­some vis­i­tors who have com­ment­ed on my last post — thanks SO much for join­ing me in the cro­chet-along! And to every­one — it is nev­er too late to join in the fun (details here)! You can make all or a few or just one of the 12 crea­tures you like. It would be real­ly great to see what every­one has cre­at­ed at the end!

AND! I’ve cre­at­ed a Rav­el­ry group! I thought maybe it will make it eas­i­er to share pic­tures. Please feel free to join if you use Rav­el­ry! I’ve nev­er made a Rav group before, bare­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in one and not so sure about how they run… so we’ll see how it goes! :D

So, any­hoo, the elu­sive white squir­rels are leg­endary crea­tures in Toron­to’s Trin­i­ty Bell­woods Park (though I’m very sad :’( to find out that we just lost one recent­ly). There is a street and a cof­fee shop in the neigh­bour­hood named after the white squir­rel. I have yet to encounter a real one, so I just keep mak­ing cro­cheted ones. Appar­ent­ly there are also white squir­rels in Exeter, Ontario, which are not albi­no with red eyes, like the Trin­i­ty Bell­woods squir­rels, but just have white fur instead of the more com­mon grey or black fur. So I sup­pose the white squir­rel we’re mak­ing here today can be a vari­ety of the Exeter squir­rels. Actu­al­ly, I chose to give the squir­rel the reg­u­lar black eyes because I’m mak­ing it for a baby mobile, and the thought of tiny red eyes star­ing down at the baby is just… a bit strange.

I think the white squir­rel also makes a nice tree orna­ment! :D

The con­struc­tion of this squir­rel is rather sim­ple. It’s made out of 4 pieces: 2 head pieces and 2 body pieces. Oh and a fluffy tail.

I used, as usual:

Worsted weight white yarn

3.5 mm hook

Black beads for eyes

Nee­dle and thread for sewing and embroidering

A bit of pink yarn for embroi­der­ing the nose

A bit of fluffy white yarn for tail (like Bernat Boucle or Lion Brand Home­spun)

Pat­tern:

Head (make 2) — cro­cheted in rounds

Round 1: 6 sc in mag­ic ring, sl st in first sc to join.

Round 2: ch 1 (does not count as a stitch), 2 sc in each sc around, sl st in first sc to join.

Round 3: 1 sc in each of first 3 sc, sc in next sc, ch 3 (this is an ear), sc in same sc, 1 sc in each of next 3 sc, sc in next sc, ch 3 (this is anoth­er ear), sc in same sc, 1 sc in each of next 2 sc, 2 sc in next sc, 2 dc tog over next 2 sc (this is the nose), ch 2, sc in the same st as first sc of the round, sl st in next sc, fas­ten off, weave in ends.

*When fin­ish­ing the 2nd head shape, leave a long tail for sewing.

Body (make 2) — cro­cheted in rows

ch 4

Row 1: sc in 2nd st from hook, 1 sc in each of next 2 sc, turn (3 sc).

Row 2: ch 1 (does not count as a stitch), sc in each sc across, turn (3 sc).

Row 3: repeat row 2.

Row 4: ch 1, sc in first sc, 2 sc in next sc, sc in last sc, turn (4 sc).

Row 5: ch 1, sc in each sc across, turn (4 sc).

Row 6: ch 1, sc in each of next 2 sc, 2 sc in next sc, sc in last sc, turn (5 sc).

Row 7: ch 1, sc in each of next 3 sc, 2 sc in next sc, sc in last sc, turn (6 sc).

Row 8: ch 1, 2 sc tog 3 times, fas­ten off, weave in ends.

*When fin­ish­ing the 2nd body shape, leave a long tail for sewing.

Attach­ing tail:

1. Cut 6 pieces of the fluffy white yarn, each about 5–6 inch­es long.

2. Find a gap between stitch­es in the low­er cen­tre of the squir­rel body.

3. With cro­chet hook, pull each piece of the fluffy white yarn, one by one, through the same gap, leav­ing the long tails on one side of the body piece and short ends on the oth­er side, like so… (I hope you can see it alright… white yarn is a bit dif­fi­cult to photograph…)

 

4. Tie the short ends togeth­er by pair­ing them up and tying each pair in dou­ble knots.

Assem­bling body and head:

1. With all the short ends of the tail inside, sew the 2 pieces of body together.

2. Sew eyes and embroi­der nose on one head piece (I made a giant french knot with pink yarn for the nose).

3. Posi­tion the head pieces so that they sand­wich the body, with the nose cov­er­ing the top row (neck) of the body. Sew head togeth­er, and sewing through all head and body lay­ers when you get to the neck/nose area.

(If you’re mak­ing an orna­ment, you can make a loop with a piece of rib­bon and sand­wich it between the 2 head pieces at the top of the head before sewing the head together).

Posi­tion­ing the tail:

Curl the tail up in a posi­tion that you like on the side of the body. Take one piece of yarn from the tail and pull it through a stitch on the edge of the body through the front, where the head and body meet, then take the same piece of yarn and wrap it loose­ly but secure­ly around the entire tail once, then pull it through the same stitch on the body through the front again, and tie a knot at the stitch on the back to secure.

Trim tail to the length you like.

And the squir­rel is done! :D

 

Hap­py week­end, everyone!