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It’s not a secret, creativity is something that has a very large place in our home and it is not surprising that my kids have very prolific imaginations. Creating, crafting, drawing, writting… their brains are full of ideas!
And sometimes their creative works make their way to my desk as a « very special, very important » custom order… and I just love it!
This time, I was asked to crochet a plushie from a drawing of an original character named FurMint… but not a tiny plushie… a HUGE plushie with BIG soft yarn.
I was definetly less enthused about that… some of you might recall the whole Giant Totoro experience…
Still, I am not one to shy away from a challange and I did not want to disappoint my daughter who had put so much thought into her character.
Even if I still do not like working with chenille yarn, I have to admit some things…
- The end results are just too cute for words.
- It works up pretty fast.
I tend to expect such large projects to take a lot longer than the miniature I am more used to… but in the end, the actual number of stitches is probably quite close and it didn’t take me as long as I expected.
What really slows me down are the sore joints, especially my shoulders! I have no idea why, but I’m guessing it’s probably the whole « you need to support your work » meaning I have to haul this huge thing around as I work that causes it.
Once I was done with the head, I realised I was going to have a major issue with it… there was just no way this huge thing would not be flopping all over the place!
I really don’t like amigurumi with floppy heads because the neck usually stretches out, making the issue worse.
I was trying to think of a solution and at first I thought I would just put a cardboard tube in the neck and call it a day… but it wasn’t very sturdy.
My husband then suggested using a piece of PVC pipe. That would have been sturdy enough, but harder to work with. Finally, I decided to crochet a tube and stuff it firmly before putting in in the plushie’s neck.
Firmly stuffing the amigurumi itself also helps, but adding a dedicated support to the neck really does make all the difference!
Since the support is basically a crochet plushie itself, there is no danger of a stray broken PVC piece or broken up cardboard if the amigurumi ever has to go in the wash.
I have seen this trick before on social media so I’m not trying to say that I’ve come up with some revolutionary crochet technique, but I had never actually used this trick before. Tiny dolls just don’t flop around much!
Another detail that I had to take into consideration for this project were the eyes; I just didn’t have any safety eyes in stock that were anywhere near big enough to fit this character. I also did not have it in me to embroider them… so I decided to use felt and both the « client » and I were quite happy with the results!
Using felt for the eyes will make the plushie harder to wash, but if they do come off they will be quite easy to replace. Add this to the fact that my daugther is way past the age where toys are actually tortured daily, we should be in the clear!
While I don’t really enjoy this type of yarn, or making large project, I cannot pretend that I’m anything but in love with FurMint!
One of the things I did enjoy about this project is that since the amigurumi was so big, it was easy to add little details here and there… like adorable toe beans!
And heart shaped too! Seriously that might be the detail that helps condition me to actually enjoy making giant plushiers!
Now some bad news… there will not be a FurMint pattern coming, eventhough she’s the most adorable little fox out there. Since it was her original creation, my daugther wanted to make sure that it would be exclusive for her.
Of course now that I’m getting more experience working with this yarn, I might eventually be persuaded to keep it in mind for futur designs… if it’s something people are interested in?
If you are a fan, I’ll just say here that eventhough most of my patterns are designed with a 2.5 mm crochet hook and #2 or #3 yarn, you can easily use thicker yarn with the appropriate hook to make a larger amigurumi!
The amount of yarn required will of course be different than what the pattern calls for, but the results will be great. I’ve talked about the influence of the yarn in another post, you can read it here.
You have an idea for a custom amigurumi? An original character you’d like to see in crochet form? Contact me to get started!
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