Topsy's baby snuggle crochet

Hello everyone,

First of all a huge thanks to all that follow, comment, like and share this blog. Thanks to you all, yesterday we reached our first milestone at 1000 views and I believe we can reach 10 000 in no time.


Today I will present you with my latest work, Topsy the elephant amigurumi in a baby snuggle blanket.

For those who don’t know, Topsy was a female Elephant smuggled into the United States in 1867 to serve in Forepaugh Circus. As many animals back then, Topsy was abused and mistreated, being fed lit cigars and struck with pitchforks at least until the day she simply lost it and killed three people. I really can’t say I blame Topsy for what happened, because I would, probably, do the same in the same situation. Unfortunately back then animal abuse was acceptable and Totsy was sentenced to death.

About the same time Thomas Edison was conducting experiments to prove that his direct current (DC) was less dangerous than Nikola Tesla alternating current (AC). He did this by electrocuting animals to death with AC and Totsy would be his biggest presentation in history. A dark day for mankind and our disrespect for nature and life and I hope it serves as a lesson to what we shall never do again.

So, today I pay my homage to Topsy, and may she trample the ones that want to harm the child that owns this blanket. Topsy, you shall not be forgotten, I just hope you can find to forgive humanity and its crimes.

Blanket Pattern

Yarns:

1. DROPS Muskat color 18 (white) 
2. Bahia color: 17 (sky blue) 
3. DROPS Muskat color: 03 (mint green) 
4. DROPS Muskat color: 02 (light blue) 
5. DROPS Safran color: 36 (denim blue) 

Other materials:

• Crochet hook 4mm 
• Scissor 

Pattern:

I followed the next youtube video for a granny square blanket. 

From the center, the blanket have the following yarns:

• yarn nr. 1 (3 rounds) 
• yarn nr. 2 (1 round) 
• yarn nr. 3 (2 rounds) 
• yarn nr. 2 (1 round) 
• yarn nr. 4 (2 rounds) 
• yarn nr. 2 (1 round) 
• yarn nr. 5 (2 rounds) 
• yarn nr. 2 (1 round) 
• yarn nr. 1 (1 round) 
• yarn nr. 3 (1 round) 
• yarn nr. 4 (1 round) 
• yarn nr. 5 (1 round) 

I make a final round of 2 chains, 1 double crochet (repeat around) with yarn nr. 2

Amigurumi Elephant

Yarns:

1. Bahia color: 17 (sky blue) 
2. DROPS Muskat color: 02 (light blue) 
3. DROPS Bomull-lin color: 02 (off white) 
4. Joaninha nº6 color: 6 (black) 

Other materials:

• Crochet hook 3mm for nr. 1 and 4 yarns and 4mm for others 
• Scissor 
• Yarn needle 
• Stuffing material 

Pattern:

Follow the pattern from this site: http://www.deramores.com/elephant-pattern/
You can download it.

For the snuggle blanket, I just made the head, 2 ears, 2 tusks and 2 eyes. Take a special attention that, in the instructions, where it's written "double crochet" or "dc" should read "single crochet" and "sc".

Great stitches ;)

Schrödinger's cat crochet toy

Hello everyone,

This weekend I had the pleasure of cat-sitting Kiko, a 4 month old, playful, male cat from a friend that went on vacations.

As you probably figured out, I couldn't resist playing with Kiko, making paper balls and using threads just to see him go crazy trying to hunt, attack, outrun and toss everything everywhere.

We add lots of fun and eventually I got tired, sat down on the sofa, picked up my hook and thought of doing some therapy crochet just to relax a bit. But I don’t think Kiko liked the idea that much since he started hunting my feet and legs, trying to bite me in a joking way.

And so I thought, maybe I can craft a crochet toy like the ones stick on a door knob so Kiko can play alone when he wants, but I didn't know if Kiko would like it. So basically I had a Schrödinger paradox, do you know Schrödinger?

In 1935, Erwin Schrödinger, in the attempt to explain the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, proposed an experiment where a cat is placed in a box with a sealed vial of poison that will break open at a random time. Now, since no one knows when or if the poison as bean released until the box is open, the cat can be thought of as both alive and dead. In the course of developing this experiment, Schrödinger coined the term Verschränkung entanglement.

Off course Schrödinger’s experiment never happened because it would be inhuman, but I decided I had to try my, must safer, Kiko's toy experiment, just to see if he would like it or not.

I started by picking up the entanglement idea with 3 colored fabric yarns followed by a crochet ball.

Crochet ball pattern:
Chain (ch) 3 and slip stitch (sl st) to the first loop.
Round 1: 5 single crochet (sc) around
Round 2: 2 sc for each st (10 st)
Round 3: 1 sc for each st (10 st)
Round 4: 1 sc and 1 single crochet decrease (sc dec) - repeat 4 times (5 st)
Round 5: 1 sc, 1 sc dec, 1 sc, 1 sc dec and a final sl st.


Let's see if Kiko likes crochet toy or not :P

Great stitches ;)