Been working on and off again for almost a month on this little guy for the Holiday Softie Awards. Not happy with the photography yet so I hope to have “real” pictures soon.

A week or so ago my lovely kitten Rogetts reminded me that every once in a while kitties need a new toy. Or they might riffle through your purse, steal you headphones out and pull the insulation off while leaving a big mess in at least 3 rooms of your house. Oh well I reward the little brat with a new set of toys made that day before she could find anything else to destroy.

I had been thinking about making toys for a while now and had been doing some research on the way the cats see and interact with the world. Cats do not see colors the same as people. Contrast and pattern are more important so I picked colors that contrasted with each other. I read that acrylic yarn taste bad to cats from some website of unknown credentials. But the idea stuck in my head and I have noticed that the cats only run off with wool and cotton. So they get cotton toys because it is so durable. Oh and the cats love to move there toys around so I topped it all off some monk cords on each end. The cats seem to love them. I am sure that catnip stuffing has something to do with it too

Want to make your kitty a set of toys and save your headphones? Here is a free pattern to help out.

Materials
• Small amount of two colors of cotton sport weight yarn (the photos is show with saucy sport yarn and sinfonia)
• size c crochet hook, or the smallest size hook you can use with your yarn (you want the stitches to be very tight so the cat nip does not fall out)
• yarn needle
• cotton balls
• catnip

Ball
Rnd 1. In MC tie a split knot around your crochet hook leaving a 10-inch tail. Wrap the tail end of the yarn around 2 fingers directly below the hook to form two large loops. SC 6 times through both loops placing a marker in the last ST. Pull both loops tight. These 6 stitches are your first round. (Need a picture tutorial?)
Rnd 2. Join with cc, sc twice in each st replace maker in last stitch throughout the pattern (12 sts).
Rnd 3. Pick up mc again and *sc, sc twice in same st rep from * to end (18 sts).
Rnd 4. Pick up cc again and *sc in next 2 sts, sc twice in same st rep from * to end (24 sts).
Rnd 5. Pick up mc again and *sc in next 3 sts, sc twice in same st repeat from * to end (30 sts).
Rnd 6. Pick up cc, sc around (30 sts).
Rnd 7. Pick up mc, sc around (30 sts).
Rnd 8. Pick up cc, sc around (30 sts).
Rnd 9. Pick up mc, *sc in next 3 sts, dec 1 rep from * to end (24 sts).
Rnd 10. Pick up cc, *sc in next 2 sts, dec 1 rep from * to end (18 sts).
Rnd 11. Pick up mc, *sc in next st, dec 1 rep from * to end (12 sts). At this point stuff the toy with a 50/50 mix of cotton balls and catnip.
Rnd 12. Pick up cc, *dec 1 rep from * to end (6 sts). Break yarn leaving a 6 inch tail. With yarn needle weave in tail trough tops of the sts twice, pull tight to close ball.

Pill
Rnd 1. In MC tie a split knot around your crochet hook leaving a 10-inch tail. Wrap the tail end of the yarn around 2 fingers directly below the hook to form two large loops. SC 6 times through both loops placing a marker in the last ST. Pull both loops tight. These 6 stitches are your first round. (Need a picture tutorial?)
Rnd 2. Join with cc, sc twice in each st replace maker in last stitch throughout the pattern (12 sts).
Rnd 3. Pick up mc again and *sc, sc twice in same st rep from * to end (18 sts).
Rnd 4-13. Alternating cc and mc, sc around (18 sts).
Rnd 14. Pick up mc, *sc in next st, dec 1 rep from * to end (12 sts). At this point stuff the toy with a 50/50 mix of cotton balls and catnip.
Rnd 15. Pick up cc, *dec 1 rep from * to end (6 sts). Break yarn leaving a 6 inch tail. With yarn needle weave in tail trough tops of the sts twice, pull tight to close ball.

Monk’s Cord Ends
Cut off 2 8” pieces of yarn in mc and cc for each toy. Take 1 piece of each color, hold them together and fold in half to form loop. With crochet hook pull loop trough a stitch on ending row of toy. Hold one end of the yarn loop and twist the other end until it begins to fold in on itself. Not letting go of the twist, fold yarn so the ends touch. You yarn should wrap around itself and make a pretty cord, if not try again this time twist more. Tie the ends together so the twist stays then cut so the ends are even. If necessary move the body of the toy around on the cord so it is at the end. Repeat the process for the other side of the cat toy.

Marshal would like you to know he endorses this toy. Oh and that he is much cutter than Rogetts. And that is why it is ok for him to jump in front of the camera while I am taking pictures of Rogetts.

On Monday I finally finished my Plush You stuff. 2 remakes of pieces I had done before and one new original.

I will start with the new guy. I have not come up with a real name for him yet (a reoccurring problem I have) but I referred to him on the inventory sheet as just “Cyan” for obvious reasons. He is made from Brown Sheep Company’s Cotton Fleece Yarn in Robin Egg Blue. He took almost a whole skein to make and was by far the largest amigurumi I have ever made at about 9 inches tall. The foot pads are made from fabric from a local quilting shop that I think might be an Amy Butler print.

Now lets have a group shot…

I made some stickers for promos…

And cute paper tags.

I have so much finishing work left to do before these guys are ready for Plush You. It is kind of fun to see all the blobs heaped together though.

I have been holding out on you. I have been busy the last few months but have not posted much on my blog. Why? Well part of it is shyness over showing many blobs that I have made while learning to sew. Rest assured that I have many projects in the works that are not quite ready to be seen. But enough excuses, I would like to introduce you to someone…

Meet Marci. Or that is what I am calling her right now. She is my first complete sewn toy. And I designed her myself because using someone else’s pattern to learn from just made too much sense at the time for me to do.

I really cannot explain to you how happy she makes me. Most of the time when I make a toy I just put it on a shelf and look at it every once in a while. Not this gal. When I am talking on the phone or wondering around the house I often find that I am holding her as I walk around. I must look silly but who cares?

The Long ear were inspired by a stuffed toy bunny I had as a kid. When my grandmother had sewn him I think she made his ears about and inch too short for my taste. I was constantly trying to wrap his ears around my wrist finding that they were just a little to short. I still managed to carry that bunny around where I went even without the convince of easy ear transport.

No Kid would have that issue with Marci though. Her ears are a whopping 18 inches long even though she only stands about 6 inches high. She is made from brown cotton with accents of green wool from a recycled sweater. Her eyes are made from vintage buttons and the ears are sewn on with new button reinforcements.

Guess I better make him some clothes. Finally got the base of this toy done after weeks of redesigns and frustration from moving and changing jobs. Now all he needs is a pair of pants. I am thinking blue jeans or a pair of blue slacks. Good news is that I now have a brand new sewing machine to make the little guy a pair. Yippee! How do you tailor pants to go on a toy anyway?

Woke up Monday morning and did not want to get out of bed for anything. Then I had this idea for a softie and needless to say I was out of bed and crocheting. Completed in less then a day this little guy is only about 2 inches tall.

I had been working on a piece called sibling rivalry for about 2 weeks when I finally gave up. The piece was going to be two bunnies giving each other black eyes. After finishing the first bunny’s head and body I started to work on the face and I could not get it right. Then I realized that I did not even like the idea all that much. So the bunny got dumped into the UFO corner of my stash awaiting the day I can think of something to do with a faceless white bunny.

So I started drawing out this little guy that I had in my head. I had this cute image of a big overbite and huge white teeth forming a grin. I wanted to make the toy child safe so the eyes, toes and fingernails are safety eyes. Also this is my first time stuffing with shredded foam. For right now I am calling him Green Guy until I come up with something better or the child he is for gives him a better name.

Look at that grin!

Safety eye toes. Eyes are not just for the head any more.

I hope I am not the only one who gets excited about finishing their last crochet stitch only to realize that there is about 3 hours of finishing work left to do.

Original sketch and the start of the head.

Around January this year a friend of mine hinted that he would like me to make him a Pac-Man toy. I ended up designing him not only packman but also a full set of ghost to go with it. After showing off on Craftster and Flickr many people begged for the pattern. So here is is at long last the Crocheted Pac-Man brought to you free thanks to the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial- NoDerivs 2.5 License.

download pattern

This year has been full of toys for me so far. I am also finding myself drawn to making toys with joints. I have found Dritz Doll Joints work well with crocheted toys. The axel of the joint makes slip’s easily between stitches. I used them in my Softie Awards entry Kitsune.

Now I have started work on a pair of bunnies and I wanted to have their joints be exposed so I started working on adapting traditional button joints to crochet. I decided it might be easiest for me to just make buttonholes and line them up rather then trying to sew the button thru the legs. While it did not occur to me at the time I really love how this gives me the ability to remove legs and arms at will. I think this will make attaching the head much simpler.

I really like the way the yellow buttons stand out with the blue thread.