Niles the Purple Hippopotamus

What you need:

1 ball of purple wool
2 plastic eyes (can be replaced by buttons or stitched on)
1 crocheting needle (size 3)


Body
Start by crocheting a flat disc (see previous tutorials), but this time with a twist. Instead of starting with a sling, you crochet a small row of slip stitches. Crochet the first row normally, then put several stitches in the last one. By doing this, you turn the row "around" and you can now crochet in continuous rows. Repet the same at the other end, until you have an oval concave shape. Voilà, this way, you will have a more "square" shape for your hippo!

Legs
Start with a sling and 5 single crochets in it. Continue in rounds until the legs are long enough.

Tail
Crochet a row of four stitches and reduce until you end up with one. Don't sew up the remaining thread, but fuzz it out with a needle. That way, you will have the "typical" hippo tail.

Head
This is the trickiest part. Crochet a first round into the body. Then, in the susequent rounds, you will need to increase on one side and stick to the pattern on the other. Following that, you will need to decrease again to form the snout. Continue for a couple of rounds. Then, crochet a triple crochet - 2x single crochet - triples crochet pattern on the top snout. Attach this to the lower part and add teeth if you are so inclined ;-)

Ears
This is easy. You will need a slip stitch and then you can put a couple of single crochets in it. Press together on the lower side and attach to the head.

Olli, the travelling Owl, finally has his own Facebook page

Check it out and "like" here:

Olli the Owl

Late Autumn Addendum: Halloween Monsters

I know, I know.... Halloween took place two months ago.... My excuse? I was very busy in my new job, learning everything that there is to learn which left me with scarcely the energy to take care of other things.

None the less, I did finally get around to photgraphing my season-specific works and here they are, folks:

From left to right I may present the Mummy, the Witch and the Wardrobe... ahem... the Ghost.

While I created the Ghost and the Witch with my usual techniques of going in circles, I decided on another approach for the Mummy. For it, I crocheted a very long string (ca. 2 meters) with simple hooks. Then, I took a small bundle of white wool and wrapped the string around it in rows in order to give it that mummified look. The arms and legs were essentially done with the same technique, but I supported the stability with additional stitches from another white wool string. So it was basically a sequence of wrapping - sewing - wrapping - sewing. Once everything was tight, I sewed on the remaining loose end and created the face with black wool.

My tip when doing a ghost: attach a loop to the head, so that you can put it up everywhere in the house or scare others with it while flinging it around. Worked at least for me ;-)

Cheers,
your devoted Crocheter Fran