Crocheted Wild Animals – Vanessa Mooncie

I had taken a bit of a break from amigurumi recently whilst I made a few blankets.  My best pal requested a fox for her birthday and I remember seeing one in a book I borrowed from the library a few months ago.  I went back and took it out again, it is Crocheted Wild Animals by Vanessa Mooncie.  It’s actually the same book that Marilyn came from:

 

I absolutely love this book.  The patterns are beautiful and the end results are really big.  Though that’s probably got a lot to do with me increasing the hook size. There is another book in the series called ‘Crocheted Sea Creatures’ and it’s only a matter of time before I give some of the patterns in there a go too!

 

 

 

Now I’ve done my usual trick of not actually photographing my progress as I go, so the first photo I took was of all the individual components ready for sewing:

The yarn I used was from a wool shop  recently discovered in my home town. (I asked if I could move in and she said yes!) Anyhow, I don’t recall the brand of yarn, but it wasn’t one I was familiar with.  It was DK that’s about all I do remember!  The black and white yarns are both Women’s Institute premium acrylic DK and I used a 4.5mm hook.

 

 

 

As I’ve mentioned a million times, I absolutely hate sewing all the bits together.  I should watch a tutorial on YouTube really, I always seem to make right mess because I’m in a hurry to get it done!  Anyhow, it took me two hours to put him together and here is what he looks like:

He is absolutely wonderful! (even if I do say so myself!)  Beecause he is so large, it really does have a ‘wow’ factor.  I’m so pleased, I’m sure my friend is going to love it.

Usually it is down to the new owner to give a name, but I decided to name him Mr Rodriguez.  I don’t know why.

As I mentioned in a previous post, it was my Nan’s birthday on 2nd April and after I made Mr Rodriguez, she flicked through the book and ‘oooohed’ at the frog that was featured.  I decided to try and do him in time for her birthday.  I should mention that the day she saw the frog was April 1st, so I didn’t give myself much time! I worked solidly all day Friday and Saturday morning, but by 16.00 on her birthday I had only managed to get this far:

 

 

Now, I think that’s pretty impressive for essentially a day’s work, but considering it took me two hours to put Mr Rodriguez together, there was no way I was going to finish this in time for the tea party a 16.30.

 

 

 

It actually took 3 solid hours to sew him together, which has done absolutely nothing for my dislike of doing it.  It was worth it though as the end result looks like this:

 

I gave it to nan on Sunday morning and she absolutely loves him!  She has called him Mr Woo!  Apparently it’s from a song…..

For my next project from the book, I was torn between the owl and the rabbit.  I will definitely be doing both, but the call of my leftover King Cole Riot yarn was ringing in my ears and I’d planned on using it for the owl’s body.  I nipped to my local shop and picked up some James C Brett ‘Top Value’ DK in a beautiful teal colour that I thought would match the colours in the King Cole yarn.

It was all very straightforward, I started from the top of the head and worked my way down to the body, which is stitched straight into the stitches of the head instead of being two separate pieces.  It was quite easy to follow, until I got myself extremely confused with the scallop stitch used for his body.  I don’t even know where I went wrong.  I frogged an entire row and it still wasn’t adding up properly.  in the end I just decided to go round and round amigurumi style without joining and chaining.  Presumably this would have given the body a slightly wonky effect, but I couldn’t tell!  I’m quite happy with how it looks.

The rest of it was really easy, and with only the feet, eyes and wings to sew together at the end, it made for a very simple finish!  I know he’s not traditional owl colours, but I think he looks beautiful!  I’ve named him Alex and he will eventually have his own birdcage and sit amongst my Harry Potter collection!

 

 

Now it was time to make the super cute bunny!  I’d already picked up some James C Brett ‘Top Value’ DK in a lovely rabbitty colour (that’s not the official colour obviously!).  Just like all the others I’ve done, it was an easy process making the head, body arms and ears, but the legs….oh those legs!!!  It was straightforward until it came to shaping the heel.  For the life of me I couldn’t understand what I was supposed to do:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took to the Bella Coco Facebook group and asked for some advice; seems this flummoxed everyone on there too!  Ravelry wasn’t much help either, there was only one question about this pattern and it was about this very thing!  Didn’t help though.

To be honest I gave up on it for a few days because it was so frustrating.  However, I bucked up and decided to try and try until I found the solution.  First I tried increasing, but that just made a great big flap that wasn’t going to attach anywhere!  Then I wondered if ‘the stitch before the first dc’ meant from the row underneath and lo and behold it did!  It was a bit fiddly and took a couple of attempts to get right, but I did it!  The second foot was an awful lot better because I knew what I was doing by that point!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really enjoyed making the ears, it was the same pattern for all 4 sections, just the inner pink section is done in a smaller hook.  I really think it’s the ears that really make this rabbit look brilliant:

 

 

 

 

I was so relieved to have those feet done, that when I got all the bits and bobs together ready for sewing,  I realised I’d forgotten one very important piece….

I can’t believe I almost forgot his tail!  It was quite fiddly to do, but I’m really glad I persevered with it because it looks so good and feels so fluffy!

The eyes were supposed to be embroidered on along with the nose, but I wanted to use safety eyes, but positioning them correctly became quite annoying!  I had to un-stitch his nose a few times in order for it to look okay!  All in all though, he was fun to make and has been named ‘Brian’.

So, that’s 5 projects I’ve made from the Vanessa Mooncie Wild animals book.  There are a few more that I’d like to have a go at, but I’ll leave those for another post!

here is a picture of the whole gang together!