More Minion Mayhem!

As you might have noticed in my previous posts, I’ve been working on a minion again (from the movie “Despicable Me”). I have been working roughly from the same pattern as before, but this time, I modified it for my own personal need: size.

My brother asked me if I could make him a big minion. When I asked him ‘how big’, he said: “however big you can make it.” Well, I did my best and though I could have made it a lot bigger if I wanted to, this looked like the right size for one.

So, without further ado, here’s the result!

He looks so cheeky!

Chair for scale ^_^

 

Like the original pattern, you can remove his goggles and overalls, but this time, I didn’t sew on the gloves either. So you can basically take off all his clothes until you have a hairy jelly bean with arms ^_^’

Naked Minion :-O

Some close-ups of details:

Eye behind the goggle

Button holes that actually work!

Gru logo on the front pocket

When I made the last one, I didn’t like how the face came out. This time, I think the arms are slightly too long, but then again, I didn’t have the motivation to redo them, so that’s a lesson for next time (if I will ever do one this big again, that is!)

I have written down how I made him, but I don’t think I will post the pattern online, since it’s pretty much a redo of the original by AllAboutAmi. Basically, what I did was make the body, arms and overalls with mostly half double crochets instead of singles. Then, to get him even bigger, I added some extra rounds and kept increasing. If you want to get the pattern, you can contact me and I’ll try to get it to you.

Cheers, Lydia

Happy Fathers Day!

After a rather easy mothers day, fathers day was a bit more difficult gift-wise. For some reason, fathers always seem to have everything they want or need. Plus, I find crocheting for men much, much more difficult. So both my dad and my father-in-law will have to make due with ‘normal’ gifts.

In the meantime, I have been making progress with the minion from my last post:

Now come the hardest parts: shoes and gloves. For the rest it was pretty easy to figure out how it has to be done. I’m kind of following the all about ami despicable minion pattern, that I have done before, only with half double crochets and working more rounds to make it bigger. But scaling up the shoes is going to be a challenge I think :S

Wish me luck!

Cheers, Lydia

Murphy strikes again!

I’m working on a big minion from the movie ‘Despicable me’ for my brother and of course, I ran out of stuffing >_< probably won't be able to get any till Wednesday…

Is there anything you pretty much always run into while working on a big project?

Cheers, Lydia

Ps: work-in-progress picture

Catbus!!

As promised, here are some pictures of the Catbus I made for a friend. By now, he has pretty much a complete collection of My Neighbour Totoro. Luckily for me, his girlfriend is starting with crochet as well, so with a bit of hard work and practise, she’ll be able to make the next one for him 😛

Frontview

From an angle

Side view

Top view

From the back

Toppled over

And before anyone mentions it: I know I said it has twelve legs, but I ran out of the golden-yellow yarn and, frankly, the will to make even more. So I stopped at ten ^_~

The pattern will follow later, I need to revise a few parts and don’t have a lot of free time this week to type it all out. So stay tuned!

Cheers, Lydia

Work in progress Catbus

A while back, I was asked to make a Catbus and of course, I couldn’t decline. I’ve been working on it a little bit, trying to write out the pattern as I go, but progress has been slow. Mostly because of work and other social obligations, but also because things aren’t really going as smoothly as I’d like them to. I finally finished the head today. I think the face looks a bit iffy, but overall, it could look a lot worse.

Well, here’s hoping things will start to look up and I can present my friend with a Catbus soon!

Cheers, Lydia

Jurassic Park

A while back I read that Steven Spielberg will be making a fourth movie in the Jurassic Park series. The first three movies have sentimental value for me, since I watched them first when I was still a kid. I’ve seen them all quite a few times since then and still love to watch them. Especially when I know a scary part is coming up and I start to brace myself in order not to get scared and thus get more scared when it actually happens 😛

Also, a new second-cousin is coming soon, so it was time for me to start work on a baby-present. It’s going to be a boy and I knew just what to make: a bunch of dinosaurs!

The pattern is from Ana Paula Rimoli, who seems to be able to make anything look extremely cute. Here’s a link to her Etsy shop! Give it a visit if you want to make these cute guys yourself.

First, I started on the Triceratops. I love these dinosaurs, with their fierce looking horns and gentle behavior (as far as I know that is…)
I used two shades of green for his body and a nice contrasting white for the horns.

He does tend to make headstands when I try to let him stand on all fours, so I need to press him down a bit. Looks like he’s too heavy for his little back legs, doesn’t it ^_~

Then it was time for a Brontosaurus, which are awesome because of their long necks and tails. The “Veggie-saurus” as it is called in the first movie, gotta love those kids.
I used light greyish browns for this one, because it needs to be able to camouflage itself. It doesn’t have the sharp spikes to defend itself with after all.

She lets her head droop a bit to the side, but then again, doesn’t that make her look even more friendly?

But, no ecosystem is complete without a predator and so, it was time to make the star of the Jurassic Park movies: a T-Rex! This one looks as though he is a vegetarian as well, though, so he was welcomed into the group without hesitation. A bold combination of blue and grey seemed perfect for him.

All together they make a lovely little group and I’m pretty sure any little boy would love to have them ^_^

Cheers, Lydia

Totoro family

One of the first online patterns I used was that of a blue Totoro by Lucy Ravenscar.

I gave it to my sister-in-law, who loves anime just as much (maybe even more) as I do. I’ve always been in love with almost every movie by Studio Ghibli, but “My Neighbour Totoro” holds a special place in my heart.

Sometime last year, I ran out of projects and decided to ask my facebook friends what I should make. One of them requested a Totoro. Usually, I really hate working the same pattern twice, but with this one I couldn’t resist. Lucky for me, Lucy changed her pattern slightly to accomodate for a big grey Totoro and made patterns for the smaller blue and tiny white ones as well. So it was decided, I needed to make an entire family of Totoros! You can find her blog entry and links to the patterns here.

In the meantime, please enjoy some pictures of the ones I made using these patterns!

Grey Totoro frontview

Grey Totoro sideview

 

Grey Totoro from the top, the tiny white one can sit on the leaf!

Tiny white Totoro

Blue Totoro frontview

Blue Totoro sideview

Blue and white together

The whole family together

Another family portrait

The same friend surprised me with a new challenge: he wants a Catbus! I’m still trying to decide whether I will use a pattern I found online (there are some pretty good ones out there) or if I will try to make a new pattern of my own… Time will tell, since I don’t really have the time for such a big project right now -_-”

Cheers, Lydia

Pascal!

A friend of mine asked if I could make her a Pascal, the chameleon from the movie ‘Tangled’. I’d seen the movie as well and I simply loved his character. Animal sidekicks are always awesome, but there was something about his look that made me fall in love with him as soon as he came into view.

The pattern was a bit of a challenge, since I just couldn’t find one for free that suited my needs. I had made a crochet chameleon before from one of my pattern books (‘Kleine Knuffels Haken’ by Christel Krukkert, only available in Dutch). He came out like this:

But when you look at Pascal, that pattern just wouldn’t do:

The feet are the wrong shape and Pascal really has to be able to stand up straight. Plus, his face has so much expression to it. It was going to be hard to recreate this in crochet form.
But I was willing to try either way.

Sadly, I only wrote down about half of the pattern I made. Maybe once I get better at making patterns and writing them down, I will redo him and make a full pattern. There are some things that I would like to change about him. Like the tail, I believe I made it too short. The face has a weird expression to it. And some of the details could have been better, but then again, I haven’t been into making my own patterns for very long. So for now, you will have to make do with just the pictures. Enjoy!

I stuffed his tail slightly and placed a pipecleaner in it, so you can bend and unbend it all you want.
I hope you guys like him, I know I do either way ^_^

Cheers, Lydia

Minion Mayhem

A little while back I watched the movie ‘Despicable me’ for the twentieth time (it could also have been the third time, I’m not entirely sure…) and suddenly it struck me: I haven’t even made a minion yet!
Luckily, a pattern was quickly found and I set to work. The project did have to be put on the backburner for a while, due to holidays, work and other things that got in the way, but shortly after New Year, I was able to finish this little guy.

You can find the pattern here. And a step-by-step guide to putting him together here.
The pattern wasn’t the easiest I’ve ever followed, so I don’t recommend it when you’re just starting. But if you are a little more experienced, it’s a great project!

I noticed too late that I’d made a couple mistakes, mostly with the eyes and mouth, but I really don’t want to redo them. The beauty of the minions is that they are all slightly different, so it isn’t a really big problem if it doesn’t come out exactly like the pictures with the pattern, right?

Another thing I love about this pattern is that most parts are removable. You can take your minion apart!

Mine gets a real butt-face without his goggles though -_-”

What’s also pretty cool is the fact that the buttons on the overalls really work:

The patterns gives the straps real life button-holes, which I think is awesome and very clever!

I don’t think my minion got as big as the one from All About Ami. Mostly because I used a smaller hook (2,5mm) and I think I used thinner yarn (never quite sure about the weights and such when it comes to yarn…)

Here’s one last picture of him guarding my pot of lucky stars:

I had loads of fun making this little guy and I hope you guys will as well!

Cheers, Lydia