Tag: crochet

Finished Object – Baby Dinosaur

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This little Baby Dinosaur by Complicated Knots was equally deceptively difficult and deceptively easy at the same time, and I can’t exactly explain it.


A crocheted baby dinosaur made in various shades of blue, teal, and purple, sits on a wooden table facing the camera.


It’s made in parts, a stuffed main body piece, head overlay, two arms, two mirrored legs, and a back panel, and then sewn together at the end.


The right side of the baby dinosaur.

I actually finished most of the pieces long before I sewed it together because I pulled one of those “putting off the easy part” moves.


The left side of the baby dinosaur.

It’s made of partial mini-skeins of Knit Picks Brava, hence way more colors than the two colors it’s supposed to be, and the back piece is slightly scrunchy, but it turned out super cute. It was very confusing, however, that I decided to pick the opposite colors of the original (blue as my dark color and purple as the light) because I would occasionally get mixed up seeing her pick up the purple where I was supposed to be using blue or vice versa.

The back of the baby dinosaur.

It was definitely fun to explore the different shaping techniques like using surface crochet to curve the legs, and to know that other people use the same “make a bunch of fingers and stick them together to make a hand” technique that I tend to use for creating hands and feet.

While this is not a beginner-friendly pattern, I would say don’t be scared to try it if it looks interesting and you have made a few Amigurumi before. My one tip is just for my fellow lefties:  when it comes to the back legs, the one you make for the “left” instructions will go on the right of the dinosaur and the “right” on the left. This is visible once the legs are finished and ready to sew on, but it might be good to remember while you are working on them.

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Finished Object – Scrap Blanket

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I present my second finished and washed scrap blanket.

A blanket with diagonal stripes of varying lengths, widths, and colors with a blue and green border laying across the top of a bed.

It’s made of all the unknown scraps from my stash box, so it’s definitely got a few bits that felted slightly in the wash. But not enough to affect it too much. 

A black dachshund puppy laying on the blanket piled up on the bed.

It’s definitely passed the puppy test. In fact, it’s passed the puppy test so well that he’s basically claimed it as a nap spot and I’ve taken to leaving it and most of the rest of my blankets on the floor at the end of my bed as his cozy area.

A ball of triple-stranded yarn with each strand a different color, the outer layer with two shades of pink and black, and inner layers involving blues, purples, yellows, and oranges in addition to the black strand.

Like I said, this was random scraps, so I don’t actually have a lot of precise info, but I can outline the general process. The base is a C2C blanket. I think this is the tutorial I learned from a few years ago, though if it isn’t I still think it’s a good, comprehensive one: C2C blanket blog post tutorial from Sarah Maker. I started in my heavier worsted weight yarns and used the magic knot method to create a ball of yarn to work from and add subsequent balls of yarn created the same way. With my thinner scraps I just used more strands together to get the right thickness. I “measured” by laying it on my bed and working until one side went across the foot of the bed, then turned one corner while lengthening the other side until it was as long as the bed before turning to make the final corner. 

The inner portion of the blanket before the border was added laying on a light wooden floor.

Once the middle had four finished corners, I took apart another C2C blanket that had been abandoned for a very long time because I ran out of the colors and used it to crochet a 6-row border around the outside using a pattern from the Crochet Every Way Stitch Dictionary and making up the corners.
Scrap blankets are my favorite way to use up scraps, especially if you are like me and just have an entire box you need to use up. I just probably would suggest that, unlike me, you wait until the heat wave dies down before you start working on one.

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Finished Object – Amigurumi Batly from Eureeka’s Castle

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A few weeks ago, the dogs were being real beggy long before dinner time. I told the little one he was going to drive me batty, and then my brain got stuck on an idea.

A crocheted blue character with pink batwing shaped ears, black glasses, white fangs, a purple and black shirt, tan pants, and brown shoes sitting in front of a TV

I had to make an Amigurumi version of Batly from Eureeka’s Castle. I am fairly certain this is the first character I’ve created without a pattern. I usually tend to stick to food when I’m making it myself. So I decided to start with the smallest piece and work my way up from there so I wouldn’t get to that piece and then have to work impossibly tiny.

Tiny blue knitted tubes on gray knitting needles

That smallest piece happens to be the finger. After a few failed attempts to create them with a crochet hook, I decided I would just make teeny i-cord niblets my smallest double pointed needles.

Small blue crocheted hands sticking out of black crocheted sleeves

I then attached them with crochet stitches, offsetting the thumbs by a couple rows to give him the correct handshape. I finished the hands off and then worked the sleeve around the wrist and up the arm, creating a bit of a raglan top to the sleeve by ending them in a triangle. I stuffed those sleeves with yarn scraps because they were too narrow to really fill with polyfil.

Two crocheted brown pointed lump shapes

I then made roughly teardrop/ Hershey kiss-shaped shoes about the same size as the hands and stuffed them with scrap yarn as well.

A pair of arms with blue hands sticking out of sleeves and a pair of pants with brown shoes sticking out.

I made his pants bottom up in the same manner, giving them a cuff at the bottom with a row of double crochet stitches and attach gin them at the top. The pants I stuffed with a handful of pipe cleaners that will be important later.

The purple torso now connects the arms and pants

I gave him a proportional torso in purple because the puppet wears a two-tone track jacket, but I wanted to make it a little easier on myself at this point so I just made it a single piece. This part was the first bit I stuffed with polyfil.

The character with a finished head with a slightly open mouth, pink tongue, white fangs, black nose, and slightly buggy eyes

I worked the head from the bottom up. Everything seemed to be going ok up the chin. I made the inset for the mouth and the eyes based on a combination of what would fit the head and the smallest I could go. Things started going south, and ignored it and pressed on. I even made the ears and sewed everything together. But this head was entirely too small.

The body of the character with a pile of facial features next to it on a gray chair

I had to frog the head, and make it bigger. Luckily, I was able to make it to fit both the body and the pieces I had already made. The only piece I had to finish at the very end was the glasses, which I ended up figuring out how to shuttle tat so they would be small enough without completely frustrating me. Then, it was time to test the best part I built into him, considering it’s one of the character’s favorite activities.

Crocheted Batly hanging upside down by his knees from the top of a TV

He hangs upside down, thanks to the pipe cleaners in his legs! I wasn’t entirely sure this was going to work, because he kept getting heavier as I added pieces. But I used enough pipe cleaners that it worked. I am so excited about it that I’ve hung him upside down from one of my shelves instead of sitting him on it.

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