Flappy Owls, and lots of other stuff I've been making

I don't seem to have posted here for a while, but I've definitely been busy.

I have just finished testing my Flappy Owl pattern, that appeared in Inside Crochet magazine last year. I can now sell it myself, so I made two more owls to test it, and because I wanted to see what Hedwig would look like in a pullover! It's a fun pattern to make, and I would love to try out all sorts of different colour combinations. You can buy the pattern in my Etsy shop.

 

Over the winter I've been working on all sorts of amigurumi, for friends, presents, and even for myself. I'm a fan of the old tv show, Blake's 7, and so I made a friend a little Blake and Avon. They were finished late just before conventions so I didn't get good photos, but here's one he took:

I also made myself one of the creatures that appears in one of the episode, a hairy, horned critter called Og, to take to the convention.

I then decided to make a present for one of my nephews. As he likes Romans I thought I'd make him an amigurumi one, and because I'm a Doctor Who fan I based it on Rory. I had a lot of fun making the helmet.

Then, as a present to myself, I used the same basic pattern I'd been using for Rory, Blake and Avon and made a little Frodo, with a removable cloak. I'll probably develop this pattern so it could be used to make all sorts of other characters.

I've also been busy making various fun little toys for our school's Christmas bazaar, so I'll start writing up the patterns for those and posting them here. And I've been working on my Totoro patterns, improving them and coming up with a version of the grey totoro as well as smaller versions of the blue and white ones. I'll be posting the completed patterns for those very soon.

Fierce Little Dragon

One of the first crochet patterns I wrote was for a dragon - my 'fierce but friendly really dragon'. I love dragons, and it's hard to find nice toys of them, so that was a real incentive to make one myself. Lots of people liked it and asked for the pattern, so eventually I wrote up my notes and put them on Craftster and Livejournal. The notes were quite rough, and though many people had no problem following them, some asked if I could write the pattern up properly. And, finally, I got round to it!

I had to make a dragon to check the pattern, and while I was doing that I tweaked a few bits - I used to crochet a lot more loosely, and I found some parts came up too small - and I used different stitches on the wings to make them much stiffer.

I won't post the pattern here as it's seven pages long, but it is available as a free download from Ravelry: Fierce Little Dragon free pattern

Edited to add: this pattern has now been translated into Spanish by Ana, over at her blog.

Edited to add 2: this pattern has now kindly been translated into French by FilACroche on Ravelry. You can download it here

Witches and Wizards

Fantasy has always been my favourite genre of books and films, so I thought I'd design some cute lttle amigurumis of various classic fantasy characters. Given that it's nearly halloween it seemed like a good idea to start with witches and wizards.

There are lots of great books featuring witches and wizards - Terry Pratchett's Discworld books have brilliant witches like the formidable Granny Weatherwax and the young but powerful Tiffany Aching, and Unseen University is home to a wonderful collection of  bickering wizards. One of the great things about the Harry Potter books is the fun J K Rowling has with all the eccentric characters in their amazing outfits and Tolkien, of course, created a classic and iconic character with Gandalf, the archetypal old, wise wizard.

One of my favourite books when I was little was The Witch Family by Eleanor Estes (if you've never heard of it you can take a look at some of it here: http://tiny.cc/wpl9p). It has lovely line drawings by Edward Ardizzone of a little witch girl, and the most adorable witch baby, which were definitely an inspiration for my designs.

My pattern is now for sale in my Etsy shop - http://www.etsy.com/listing/59426451/pattern-for-witch-or-wizard-mini - and with it there are instructions for all the variations to make a mini witch or  wizard (just 4.5" tall) with several different looks.

Dragonet Pattern

Have you ever wanted your own pet dragon? Well, generally they're a bit big to fit in the house, so what you need is a Dragonet, a small or young dragon. I've finally finished my latest pattern, so now you can crochet yourself a Dragonet, a fantastical friend who will hang around your home.

Small for a dragon, but pretty big for an amigurumi - they are about 17.5" long and have a wingspan of 22". Of course, if you're a Lego person, they are just the right size for a ride, as one of my pattern testers discovered:
 http://tossedcookies.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/just-another-bedtime-story/

I'm very happy, after a certain amount of experimentation, with the wings. I managed to make them fairly stiff without using any wire or anything else apart from crochet and stuffing. I also tried out different eyes - they can be made with either safety eyes (ones with a slit rather than a round pupil look best, I think) or with round beads - the red Dragonet has clear glass ones.

If you want to make your own Dragonet, the pattern is for sale in my Etsy shop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/lucyravenscar