6th pat­tern in the 12 Days of Wood­land Crea­tures (and Their Favourite Things) project. Can you believe we’re already half way done? Fun times go by fast :D

For this bear I used:

Worsted weight yarn in blue, light blue and brown

3.5 mm hook

Small black beads for eyes

Nee­dle and thread for sewing and embroidering

Pat­tern:

Head

Round 1: With blue, 6 sc in mag­ic ring, do not join.

Round 2: 2 sc in each sc around, do not join (12 sc).

Round 3: *1 sc in next sc, 2 sc in next sc*, repeat from * to * around, do not join (18 sc).

Con­tin­ue work­ing 1 sc in each sc around until piece is 1″ tall, ch 1.

Now we make the ears. Press head flat, insert hook in next sc and the sc before the st on hook, like so…

Make 1 sc in these sc, then make 2 hdc and 1 sc in same sc, sl st in each of next 5 sc in both lay­ers, ch 1, [1 sc, 2 hdc, 1 sc] in next sc, sl st in last sc on the edge, fas­ten off. Weave in end.

Snout

Row 1: With light blue, 3 sc in mag­ic ring, turn.

Row 2: ch 1, sc in first sc, 2 sc in next sc, sc in last sc, sl st in mag­ic ring, fas­ten off, leav­ing a long tail for sewing.

Embroi­der nose on snout with brown yarn.

Face

Sew snout to head. Sew on eyes. Sew french knots on the ears with light blue yarn.

Body

Round 1: With blue, 6 sc in mag­ic ring, do not join.

Round 2: 2 sc in each sc around, do not join (12 sc).

Con­tin­ue mak­ing 1 sc in each sc around until piece is 1″ tall.

Sec­ond last row: *1 sc in next sc, 2 sc tog over next 2 sc*, repeat from * to * 3 more times.

Last row: 1 sc in each sc around. Fas­ten off, leav­ing long tail for sewing.

Arms and legs

Arms are attached between first and sec­ond rows from the top of body, and legs are attached between last and sec­ond last row of body.

Attach yarn to the st where the arm/leg would be, like so.

Draw up a loop, ch 4, sc in 2nd ch from hook, sc in each of next 2 sc, sl st in the st where the yarn is attached, pulling up a length of yarn about 24″ long as you com­plete the sl st…

 

Cut yarn. Insert hook through the stitch where the 2nd leg will be AND the stitch where the first leg is attached, and pull the yarn through.

Insert hook in the stitch where the 2nd leg start­s and make 1 sc in the stitch. ch 4, sc in 2nd ch from hook, sc in each of next 2 ch, sl st in the st where the leg is attached, fas­ten off, weave in ends.

Do the same for the arms, except use sl st instead of sc when cro­chet­ing down the arms.

Using long tail from body, sew body to head. I also made a french knot for a tiny tail.

And we have a bear! :D

Have a hap­py rest of the week!

 

5th pat­tern in the 12 Days of Wood­land Crea­tures (& Their Favourite Things) project!

So, we’re going to a mush­room iden­ti­fi­ca­tion work­shop at High Park tomor­row, and Mike thought it would be a real­ly great idea to make a mush­room pin on his own for the occa­sion. And so I thought it would be the per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty to make up the mush­room pat­tern while teach­ing him how to cro­chet :D

Appar­ent­ly, hedge­hogs real­ly like mush­rooms. So do Hob­bits — “It is said that Hob­bits have a pas­sion for mush­rooms, sur­pass­ing even the greed­i­est lik­ings of Big Peo­ple” (source). Any­way, I digress.

Here’s Mike work­ing hard to mas­ter the ch, sc, hdc…

 

And here’s what he made :D I love the whim­si­cal dif­fer­ent sizes spots on it.

And here it is with the oth­er two I made.

These mush­rooms are flat, great for applique, brooches and ornaments.

There are prob­a­bly dozens of mush­room applique pat­terns writ­ten already. But I thought what I can offer is two super quick, super easy ways of mak­ing mush­rooms — a rounder, more plump one (red and blue) and a nar­row­er one with ver­ti­cal tex­ture (brown).

Mate­ri­als:

We used chunky weight yarn for the red and blue mush­rooms, with a 5 mm hook, because Mike want­ed to use a spe­cif­ic colour of yarn and I only have it in chunky weight. But worsted weight yarn and a 3.5 mm hook will also work well.

Also, tapes­try nee­dle for sewing and embroidering.

Pat­terns:

Round mush­room cap

ch 2, 6 sc in 2nd st from hook, do not join.

*2 sc in next sc, sc in next sc*, repeat from * to * two more times, do not join (9 sc in round).

Con­tin­ue in rounds work­ing 1 sc in each sc until mush­room cap is about 1″ tall. Fas­ten off, leave tail for sewing.

Stem

ch 6, hdc in 2nd ch from hook, sc in next ch, sl st in each of remain­ing ch. Fas­ten off.

Assem­bly

Embroi­der spots on mush­room cap with french knots.

Place the nar­row end of the stem into mush­room cap. Using yarn tail from mush­room cap, sew the open­ing of the mush­room cap togeth­er along its width, sewing through the stem when you come upon it.

Nar­row mush­room cap

Make a mag­ic ring, ch 4, 8 dtr (dou­ble triple stitch) in mag­ic ring, sl st in the top of begin­ning ch 4. Fas­ten off, leave tail for sewing.

*the dtr may take some prac­tice to mas­ter as it has a ten­den­cy to become loose between stitch­es, but once you’ve done all eight of them then that’s it! You’ve fin­ished the mush­room cap!

Stem

ch 8, hdc in 2nd ch from hook, sc in next ch, sl st in each of remain­ing ch, fas­ten off.

Assem­bly

Same as round mushroom.

There will be big gaps between the long dtr stitch­es, but embroi­der­ing on the spots and sewing the open­ing of the mush­room cap closed will help keep it in shape.

 

Hope you enjoy the mush­room patterns!

Also want to give you a heads up that the next cou­ple of pat­terns for the 12 Days of Wood­land Crea­tures project may get delayed a bit. Things are becom­ing busier than I have antic­i­pat­ed. I’m mak­ing stuff for a craft sale next week­end, and then sev­er­al school/work relat­ed meet­ings and dead­lines also sud­den­ly got sched­uled for this com­ing week… here’s a look at my couch, in the midst of pre-sale rush, with Fil­bert the cat look­ing on, full of concerns…

 

But it’s excit­ing! The com­ing week is full of excit­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. It just took me by sur­prise, that is all.

I had planned on post­ing a pat­tern every 2–3 days, and I will still try to do that, but if the next one comes out a day or so lat­er, please bear with me >_<

Have a won­der­ful week­end, everyone!!

 

 

 

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!