A head of rose(s)

This blog is a zoo, but the flora deserves to have a shot, too. This week I was inspired to make a headpiece. The result is this rose, that you wrap around your head asymmetrically (notice the shorter thread on one side). Alternatively, you can wear it around your neck, where it makes a pretty "Trachtenschmuck".

Thread

The thread is basically a string of crochets. Make sure to sew the loose end into the tread so that they don't stick out.

Rose

This flower consits of three layers of continued round. You can diversify how much you want to in the design, but you need to make the bottom one the largest and so on.

Your enthusiastic crocheter,
Fran

The Freeborn, Lovelorn, Forlorn Unicorn

It's magic time!!!! May I present the one and only unicorn?

Horse-shaped animals are actually really difficult to do. For starters, you have 7 pieces that you need to sew together. Moreover, the mane and tail have to be woven into the these pieces. And last but not least, you will have to make sure that all is well-proportioned. Huh.... Let's break it down.

The body is oval-shaped and quite easy to finish in comparison. The legs are simply made of a ring of 5 crochets until they are long enough. The head is oval-shaped, as well, only much smaller. It is the neck that poses that challenge!

For the neck, you will need to start with a fairly long row of crochets and then slowly decrease until you have a form looking like this:

 

By sewing it together at opposite ends, you create a tube - the neck! If necessary, you can get the neck into form with additional strings that you pull through it and knot at either side. 

The finishing touches consits of the attachment of the mane and tail and the design of the snout. For that, you pull ca. 5-8 strings through the rear and neck and knot them together. Then, fizz out the strings by pulling a needle through them. By being "fizzy", the strings widen and thus a dissolution of the knots are prevented. The snout can simply be stitched on and the eyes glued on.

Fell the magic yet? The Freeborn, Lovelorn, Forlorn Unicorn certainly does....

Guinea Pig

What you need:

1 ball of effect yarn (the "fluffy" kind), preferrably in beige or light brown
1 ball of beige wool
2 plastic eyes
a black thread for the snout
1 crocheting needle

The guinea pig is probably one of the easiest stuffed animals you will crochet. Why? All you need to do is produce an oval-shaped body, the ears and feet and that's it basically. Here's how you do it:

Body
Start by crocheting a disc (as shown in previous tutorials) and increase round by round until you arrive at a satisfying size. Then continue to crochet without increasing or decreasing until you have a satisfying length, as well. Then decrease and make sure to stuff the animal with batting before you close off the body.

Ears
Crochet a row of 4 stitches with the beige wool. Then decrease by taking two stitches together. Repeat that in round 3. Sew the ears onto the body.

Feet
Start by crocheting a tiny disc. Increase in round two and immediately decrease in round three, so that you get a voluminous effect. Sew the feet onto the body.

Face
Stitch on a snout by using the black or alternatively brown thread (depending on the shade and thickness of the wool). Glue on the plastic eyes.

Say hello to your little guniea piggy!

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

Good Wool Hunting

With me living in Munich - third-largest city in Germany - , one would think that finding the right material for crocheting would be like a walk in the park. Wrong! Munich does sport an adequate, or better said fashionable number of wool shops.

But the selection is anything but fashionable. Rather old-fashioned, to be honest. A couple of months ago, I went to have a look into one of the shops just to find that the balls cost an obscene amount of money and the range was really small. Then, last week, when I asked for effect wool I was told that they "do not feature synthetic fibers just because".

Where, do you ask, is the creativity? The fun? A wool shop is not social media playground, admitted, but the why do owners not experiment a little? A couple of years ago, effect garn was the latest hype and you could get it everywhere. Where has this initiative gone? For such a traditional sector, you would not expect trends to come and go like that.

Anyway, this leaves me with fewer options that I thought. Furry guinea pigs? Not possible. Fluffy teddy bears? Not realizable. A remake of Alf? Forget it!

So please, please, shop owners, be a bit more innovative and give us creative, young, energetic crocheters something to work with. Until then, I will have to beg my mother to get me the appropriate wool in tiny Würzburg (where, suprisingly, there is still some choice). Hrrmmppff!