Catbus revisited

One of my earlier patterns was that of a Catbus, from the movie My Neighbour Totoro. I made one for a friend of mine when I started writing my own patterns. Sadly, when I wanted to make another one, I realised I never fully wrote out the pattern. So when I decided I wanted to make a catbus for the Tegendraads stand at Tomofair this October, I took out my old notes and revised them. And wrote them down in full. So I can make this new, ‘improved’ catbus over and over again.

Catbus all in parts

Inside out

All put together

Working on the face

A big smile for the camera

All ready to take you wherever you need to go!

I’m pretty pleased with the result, especially since I dabbled a bit in changing colours and carrying the yarn as I went. I’m not sure if I will ever post the pattern on here, since the instructions are clear to me, but hard to put into understandable terms. Plus, the pattern is huge! So it would take a lot of time to type up and I don’t have the time or motivation for that right now ^_^” you guys will have to make due with the pictures for now, but if you’re at Tomofair on October 4th swing by the Tegendraads stand and come admire it in real life ^_~

Cheers, Lydia

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

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