Toasty Crocheted Jacket Gets Extensive Testing

I ended up adding a drawstring to the hood.

Just in time for a record cold front, this yarn stash buster is holding up pretty well (though in unexpected ways) under rigorous kid testing.
'Bob' requested a new crocheted sweater and rifled through my yarn stash to be helpful. He liked the bright twists of color in the Lion Brand Landscapes. The challenge: only 3 skeins and no time to track down more. I like its wool content and it's a fun crochet yarn.

So, to make the most of the first yarn, I did strips of Tunisian Simple Stitch (TSS) because it gets the most mileage out of the yarn. 

It's true! Eva Owsian once posted a comparison of yarn used for a knitted stockinette swatch, TSS swatch, and single crochet stitch swatch. (Angela refers to it here.)
Would you believe that with the same amount of yarn, the TSS swatch was bigger than the knitted one?

Yeah! Totally.

Then, based on the Marco Jacket (my first TSS strips experiment), I found yarns that coordinated with the Landscapes colors. Lion Brand Suede colors were great but I had to add strands of a medium-weight yarn to beef up the yarn thickness so that it matches Landscapes. Naturallycaron Country adds a nice sheen, and some Brown Sheep wool looked great.
The yarn is actually holding up better than the blocked finished shape. As time goes by, the bottom hem is hiking up a bit, and the shoulder seam is growing--relaxing and creeping down his arm as if it's not his size. It's not supposed to! 

I was counting on the inelasticity of the TSS return rows to support the weight of the sleeves without stretching! In retrospect, I didn't account for the air (the extra space around each stitch) that gets built into chenille yarn when it's crocheted. And get this: it's magnified when chenille is held together with another yarn strand, like I did.

But I'm enjoying seeing these rich textures and more mature colors on him, rather than the usual primary colors. So for my Ravelry project page I've named it "Velvet Motley, A Midwinter Coat."

Crochet Stitch Close-ups of Club Penguin Puffle

For amigurumi and toy crocheters who'd like a closer look at the Rare Orange Puffle, here's the starting shape, which you can see here at the base of the toy:

I hope that you can make out that the first rounds of single crochet stitches were worked in a rectangular shape. I did this so that it would sit flat, not wobble or tilt. Also, a Puffle body is not perfectly round.

For the hair I unearthed my old latch hook rug making skills. (I don't have the handy latch hook tool anymore but a simple crochet hook worked fine.) Here's the revealed hairline:

You could really just tie on the yarn pieces with simple overhand knots. (It looks like that's what I did in this photo anyway.) I'm thinking that I should trim the hair slightly shorter. It's a bit too flat'n'floppy.

And here's a close up of the face. Crazy cartoony looking features, huh? I'm proud of the satin stitching of the pupils.

Rare Orange Puffle Sighting!

Kids who are members of Club Penguin know how rare an orange Puffle is. I even found a GetOrangePuffle Blog! One day Chippy the cat must have captured one in the wild because look:


The Puffle seems as comfy as Chippy and Bob, so maybe "befriended" is a better word than "captured."

This is a 99% crocheted Puffle, even the eyeballs! The remaining 1% is whatever embroidery stitches I was able to recall on the fly from childhood. I was able to do the Satin Stitch reasonably well for the eye pupils--they came out nicely once I rimmed the stitches with short chained stitches. I watched my fingers do that stitch (for the mouth too) with wonder, because my mind doesn't remember it even though my fingers do!

What do you think of the eyes? I like the embroidery but don't know if I like the white part. My son loves it :-)