Squirrel Making

A few months ago I decided to try my hat at creating my own toy pattern. I wasn't trying to make something revolutionary but just something simple with simple shaping and one color. The little town that I live in celebrates a White Squirrel Festival each year and the owner of the consignment shop in town had been asking me if I knew how to make a white squirrel toy so I took up the challenge and decided I would make a pattern for a white squirrel. Above are Chris' and my sketches to try and determine the general shape. Evil Patrick is not related to squirrel making but rather a creepy manifestation of Chris' psyche.

The sketching helped me a lot with visualizing where I should be adding increases and decreases and was a great reference to look back at as I went so that I could judge whether I was really heading in the right direction. You can see where I scribbled notes as I went to keep track of what I was doing and, when it wasn't working, scratch it all out and start over. I definitely need more practice to get the hang of making up my own toy pattern. While I like how this turned out I feel that I hit a better cat note than I did squirrel. My next step is to modify the pattern to make a pirate squirrel like the one drawn near evil Patrick. I always loved making pirate monkeys and I think that pirate squirrels will be pretty damn cute, too. Really, everything looks better when dressed as a pirate. I think it's the eye patch.

The in progress and finished squirrel are below. I'm super happy with the tail although I think I could have stitched a Swiffer on it's butt and saved myself about 3 hours of tedium. In the finished product I also added a jaunty little scarf because the squirrel just seemed like it needed something to break up all that white. Plus it makes it look sophisticated and jet-setting and, really, don't squirrels sort of look that way in real life? Something about a fluffy tail makes an animal look fancy.

Squirrel in progress

Finished squirrel

White Squirrel

I've been talking with the super nice owners of the local consignment shop in town for a few months about trying to get some stuff in their store but I've been so crunched for time that I've put it off until now. Every year this little town has a White Squirrel Festival and when I ran into the consignment shop owner a few weeks ago he told me his wife has been desperately seeking white squirrels. They forwarded me a link to the pattern that they'd found online at Pixie Kitten. It was so crazy cute that I bought the pattern and made my own little white squirrel. I finally finished it up the other day and dropped it off at the shop this morning where it stands as a one of a kind toy (until I get around to making some more). White squirrels are so hugely popular here that I think these would sell crazy well. So one down, dozens more to go!

Bunny Done!

The bunny is done. I modified the pattern a little to make the bunny a smaller since I didn't have enough yarn for the full size. I also changed to ears from crochet to knit and knit them in two halves that where then seamed. I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out.

The beginnings of a bunny

You can't really tell from this photo but this is going to be a bunny, if all goes well. This little toy is a heavily modified version of the Caron One Skein Bunny. The original pattern makes a bunny about twice his size and that was just a little more than I wanted to take on, plus I didn't have enough yarn for that. So I scaled down the head and body from the pattern and then made the legs and arms more like the arms of the teddy bear that I just finished.

I'm sort of winging the ears though so that might take some trial and error. They're going to be big, floppy ears with pink on the inside to add a nice bit of color and cuteness. I'm hoping to have this one finished up this week so that I can start on the third toy this weekend. I haven't decided what to make next. I've got a very cute pig pattern from my page a day calendar so I might give that a try.

Bear is Done!

The bear is done! How cute is he? Man, I really wish I got to keep some of these. They're just so hard to part with sometimes. I really love how he came out. I had my doubts for a few moments when I was seaming him all together but he really is adorable. And I just love how he will always look like he's reaching out for a hug. One down, two to go!