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 It's the second half of the year. Time for another award: Doll By Request Year 2022. The award goes to Dad Tiger! In the first half of the year I designed a doll of my choice, Nana Platypus. This time I am designing by request, so someone else got to choose.  Here's a snapshot of the work-in-progress. Derived from the Grandpere Tiger design from a while back, this should turn out similar in size and look. 

Fun at Hobby Lobby💖 Jodi yarn substitution

Since Michael's got rid of Jodi's main yarn color by Red Heart Soft (Toast brown),  it's been difficult to find anything similar. I used to enjoy the walk to shop at Michael's.  Good news is that Hobby Lobby is just 5 miles away. It turns out that they had a very similar color and I like it a lot (Cinnamon brown). During the 30% off all yarn bi-weekly sale I picked up a few yarns to try out.

 

 Crochet hats and hoods for playtime and to stay warm.

 

They fit! I can't get over how this box of 12-count Great Value brand of Toaster Pastries  fits in my IKEA cubby. If you sit two boxes next to one another it fills the space nicely. If you cut the top flaps off and lay the box down on its widest side it becomes a shelf. Then, stack away into a cute recycle shelf for those small hand-wound cakes of yarn. It's so fun to store yarn in the front half the usual way and now in the back half of just one cubby shelf.  I get to eat toaster pastries and recycle at the same time! Maybe next I can glue multiples together and decorate them. I need to also check to see if it fits in the Better Homes & Garden brand cubby just as well!

Here is the shrunken 2021 style of my Katerina Kitty Cat doll (made by request). Not fully satisfied with the outcome. What comes to mind is to improve the head on my next attempt.  

Here's how she looked in a larger version (one of my favorites 💖). This is really how I want the mini version to look.  Back to a work-in-progress! 

 

Nana Platypus 2022 again:

Moving on from the accidental loss of certain detailed instructions for xlarge Nana (mentioned in the previous post), I carry on to finish a smaller version.  This version needs to be a size relative to my Jodi doll. Thus, the xlarge Nana version must shrink. The body details were not lost, only the head. So, I hope this first attempt works out. Notice the width difference in the head shapes in the photo. It has taken a  while to work this difference out. May 2022 is turning out to be quite a month. To labors of love 👧!

So I just made up a deadline for the award 🌟Doll of the Year 2022🌟.  It's May 8, '22. Three months have passed since that blog post mentioning this 'nomination'. It was intended for Nana Platypus from the start so it's not really a nomination. Here are some honorable mentions as well for 2022: O the Owl, Prince Wednesday, and Miso the Owl. Nana came out to be 14 inches. She wears spectacles and flashy earrings, and shows off her figure in a sporty green outfit.  Let's remember mommies and nanas this May 8!

How do you find working with fur yarns? Is it fun or not? The last time I posted about this topic was ages ago, around 2013. I even still have some of the yarn since then. 

A Better Way To Use Fur Yarn

Making amigurumi with fur yarns can be a challenge.  Maybe I have stumbled upon a better way than I had before. Think of reupholstering.  The furniture is covered once more to update the look of it. 

Let's call this patchwork.  

So, I'm calling this a patchwork project. Patch by patch let's see what gets covered.  With so many leftover doll parts to choose from, let's patch up an amigurumi head, for example. It has a front and back, then the 2 sides.  It's made from common acrylic yarn. Think of it as our base. I want to cover up this original base for a new look. Using fur yarn and a hook, make enough chains to cover the last row of the back of the head.  Include the sides. Leave out the front for now. Using tall stitches, like half double and double crochets, you can quickly form a suitable patch to cover the back and sides of the head in no time. Work your rows back and forth, checking the fit as you go. The advantage to this method is layering the yarns resulting in a firmer head and the look of fur material.  The fur is not yet attached to the head. In the photo you can see what yarn I used, the type of part covered up (the head) and the result.

A front patch is made similar to the back patch, but without including sides. Front and back are sewn together with the base underneath, leaving a portion undone at the top for ear placement. The ears are worked in the round using fur. The snout, made from acrylic yarn, was sewn underneath the fur onto the face. Acrylic yarn is used to sew together the patches and to attach the ears and snout. This is as far as this project has gone so far.

The cover-up patches are from short-hair chenille yarn. It was purchased from a shop on etsy, stufftomakemorestuff. Some chenille yarns come from the mill end of yarn production. That is the brown furry yarn you see in the photo. It took less than 10- 25g. I didn't weigh it so weight is not confirmed. My goal is to make something furry piece by piece. This part turned out to be fun doing it this way. More furry heads are in the works as seen in the next photos.  

 Ok, this challenge was just sprung on me 😏. It's Miso the Owl by Sago Mini. This new character premiered in Fall '21 for a back-to-school sort of theme. The colors are shades of teal, I'd  say.  It was 'fun' after it was done (a learning curve indeed for me). If I get to do one again there's plenty of this yarn leftover  (Red Heart Super Saver in Jade and I Love This Yarn in Antique Teal).

Prince Wednesday's complete. O the Owl tagged along in his shrunken new design. They have been sent on their way. Yay!

 

 March 13, 2022

Yesterday morning it was as low as 8°F here, then it went up to 18 degrees. But this is in March! Well this may be the last of this blast of cold that we have to take for sometime. The 40's are on the way.

Meanwhile,  I finished a request for 5 Sago babies for a March birthday.  ✔😃 

It was my first time doing such a request.  They're my latest doll shrinking adventure.  

Here's the duet, #tigey and #pinktigey. These are for a very special someone. They have been sent on their way. I await their arrival to find out how well they're received. It was a treat and a blessing to be asked to make such huggable gifts. For this I am thankful. 

So many new balls of yarn are stuck in a valley of incomplete projects, some with just a few rows completed. This woe of creativity may be on its way out because of one new discipline called journaling. Crochet WIP Mini Journals is a self-explanatory title for this future blog post. Let's start a new journey.  

Let's fast forward into a 2022 custom request. Here's a sneak peek of it. It's a sweet work-in-progress, like eye candy. The request is for a new color Tigey, in pink. I hope it will be a treat. Let's see how it turns out.

To capture the source of the Nana doll request would be an exercise in futility.  I can't recall who it was. Nevertheless, it has become part of my quest in '22. It just may turn out to be the Doll of 2022. I'm off to a slow start in January.  Well sometimes I get stuck, creatively so. 

On the other hand, the prince is coming along nicely. 

Many requests were left over and spilled into the New Year! Where are the shoppers at now who made the requests? Will they return in 2022? That is the mystery.  I'll just check-in for the first time this year with a step back in time. It was last month that a Prince Wednesday request came through. Presently, I am trying out making a wig for his head. Btw, it's getting colder here by the week