A Minion for Little B

Little B has a great liking for the minions in the ‘Despicable Me’ movies. He’s never seen the movies, as he’s a bit too young, but he’s seen some of the short films and music videos starring the minions. A while back I saw a few examples of amigurumi minions on Ravelry and decided to make him one. I began in November, and finished it this morning, Christmas Eve, the day we celebrate and give presents in Sweden, after sitting up half the night working on it. I have had a few other things that also needed doing, what with us moving in a week and everything….

Anyway, I used one of the free patterns on Ravelry as a starting point, but didn’t like how it turned out, so in the end I improvised a great deal. I had planned to let the minion have two eyes, like this fellow:

Unfortunately I found, at half past one last night, that the grey crochet yarn I thought I had was nowhere to be found. Luckily I did have a small amount of grey embroidery floss, which was only just enough to make a (rather shallow) Cyclops goggle, like what this one has:

Phew. It vexed me a bit that the tiny buttons I had planned to go on the front of the trousers were packed and impossible to get to, but I can stitch them on later. I had also planned to embroider a G on the front, but that too will have to wait - if it ever will happen…. I did have some scraps of white cotton fabric that had not yet been packed though, and I had left my embroidery floss unpacked on purpose. This morning I embroidered an eye, stitched it to the minion, embroidered a smile and then attached the goggle.

Finished. I’m quite happy with the result, despite the few miscalculations, and even better, B is happy with it. Good thing too, as it is the only Christmas present any of us got today: we’ll save the rest of our gifts for when we have moved (not that we ever give much; we’re quite restrained when it comes to that. Better one or two things really appreciated than several that you don’t care that much about, just for the sake of it). We don’t really need more stuff to carry.

Despite us celebrating Christmas amongst boxes and cartons, we are happy. We have each other, we have good food, we’re healthy, we’ll be moving to a new home in little over a week, we’ll be having a new baby next summer. God has blessed us greatly.

I hope you all have a nice Christmas (or just a nice week if you don’t celebrate it), with lots of joy, love and inspiration.

Amigurumi Bunny

Well, my dear readers, it’s been a whole month since I last posted – time does fly. I don’t have much excuse to give but the fact that I’m very “big with child”, is tired most of the time (I usually take a one or two hour nap each day), and don’t get as much sewing, knitting and crocheting done as I’d like, if any. At the moment I’m having short periods of intense energy, followed by periods of exhaustion and sleepiness. Sigh. However, a couple of days ago I did finish my number one priority project, my coat (at long last), and hopefully I’ll get pictures of it shortly.

I have also made a little something for the baby; I crocheted a bunny to be hung over the pram. I had planned to make three, but then thought it would take up too much room – I prefer to be able to see the baby, and for the baby to be able to see its parents. Only the one rabbit would look a bit lonely, though, so Tobias suggested I made a couple of carrots as well. I liked the idea, and a bunny with one carrot on each side is what I made.

The bunny is made from this pattern (in Swedish, sorry), using cotton yarn. The eyes are special safety eyes for amigurumi, so baby won’t be able to pull them out and choke on them. The bunny faces into the pram on purpose – it’s supposed to be there for the baby’s sake after all. Not that it’ll care much the first weeks... I improvised the carrots, and am pretty pleased with how they turned out. The material for them is bamboo silk, from a set of six small balls of yarn, a present from a friend. Orange is not usually “my” colour, but for this it was perfect.

I have noticed most of my yarns and fabrics are in pretty muted colours, which I like, but might not be very interesting for a small child. Luckily it will have grandmothers, aunts and friends of its parents that will provide more interesting colours in toys and such.

I now have just little over two weeks until due date, so in theory, the baby could arrive at any time from between tonight and Christmas. I would much prefer tonight over Christmas, but it’ll come when it’s ready. I try to keep a balance between keeping busy with amusing things and taking enough time to just rest. It’s an interesting time, and one I try to savour as much as possible.

First Try at Amigurumi

I have long been impressed with the lovely Japanese crocheted soft toys, called amigurumi. They are so cute, charming or fun, and admittedly, sometimes plain odd or weird. I have been thinking of trying it at some point, but I’m not very good at crocheting, so I never really dared. Then, last night, I was at a baby shower for a friend, and her mother had made the most darling little turtles in this technique, to be hung on a mobile for baby’s crib.

This afternoon I decided I would try. I don’t have the pattern for the turtles, so I browsed the internet to see if I could find something cute and simple as a first project. There are a lot of patterns for turtles, but I fell in love with the ones I saw at the baby shower, and will hope to get the pattern for those. I found this duckling instead, and it wasn’t as hard to make as I’d thought.

It’s not perfect, it has a few flaws here and there, but for a first time project I’m happy with it. The colours, though I like them, are perhaps not the most interesting, especially not for a baby, for witch this is intended, but it was all I had (or was willing to sacrifice on this trial run) in my stash.

This was perfect occupation for me this afternoon, as I’m having a severe cold again, and tiresome contractions. I believe there will be more amigurumi in my future.