Tuesday 12 October 2021

Lockdown crochet critters

 How can you tell how long I've been in lockdown?..

...by the number of crochet animals around the house.

Melbourne has, I think, just won the world record for the city with the most number of days in lockdown. If I can't celebrate that with a blogpost about crocheted critters, what I can do?*



This is "Georgie" who was a request from A when she was flipping through my Crochet Wild Animals book.

I was ordering some yarn online for a different project and it seemed easy enough to through in some cotton for this one. I think it's a Bergere de France yarn, but I appear to have tossed the wrapper already




It was a fun little project to make and those horns (ossicones, to be precise) are just too cute!



The primary reason I was yarn shopping, late at night, on my phone was for a different project.

Actually, the real reason is because we were STILL in lockdown and late night wine fuelled online shopping is what you do when there is * (see footnote) else to do

We have a bit of a gap under our front door and the cold winter made it clear we needed a draft excluder.

Let me introduce you to Portal, the door-snake


Portal is also made form a pattern from the same book. She's crocheted in a cheap King Cole Merino blend DK that was a bit of a beast to work with as it tended to split really easily.

But the real challenge has been trying to train her to stay at her post by the front door... Here she is in a brief moment of good behaviour:


A little off duty leisure time on the carpet...


Then, good girl, back where you belong


The pattern had an error in how much of the beige/off white yarn was needed, and she lay around half finished for a bit while I waited for another ball of yarn to make it's way to me (and yes, I bought that ball late at night, with wine in hand and may have added something else to make up for paying for the shipping, see footnote)

In the end I ran out of the brown colours a repeat or two before the pattern indicated I should stop, but she was already long enough.


once she was finished, she was off!



She's stuffed with tiny scraps from the fabric bucket which gives her a bit more weight and better draught excluding properties and also makes for some interesting views of her multicoloured "guts" between the crochet stitches. 



P managed to wrestle her down out of the trees and tame her..




or did he?!!!




* sweet fuck all is the correct answer.

4 comments:

  1. 😂😂 a lockdown badge is definitely needed for you in Melbourne, I feel for you every time. Now Georgie is just too cute for words and love how she moves. Now Portal looks very lovely and would appreciate seeing what she has eaten with all those colours, but there is no way I am getting anywhere near her 😱

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  2. So many thoughts on these most excellent creatures! First, I was quickly corrected by my son when I dared to call those horns on a giraffe. Second, what a fabulous idea for stuffing things - I have 8 years' worth of fabric scraps that have just moved from Singapore to Canada (yes, I moved scraps) looking for a suitable home. Third, I'm glad I wasn't the only one with issues using the King Cole yarn - used it for the hermit crab and cursed with every row of the darn thing. And finally, clearly the reason my late-night online shopping isn't nearly as productive as it should be is because I am not drinking wine with it. Time to rectify that ASAP.

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  3. Georgie Giraffe is super cute! Love all the photos with Portal - posing in the tree! No wine for me but I have definitely been guilty of some late night online shopping, but in my case it is second hand books ( ‘cos I need more teetering towers of texts in my house) and alcohol art markers…Hmmm on reading that I guess there was a form of alcohol involved after all!

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  4. I love your lockdown animals Shelley and the snake is gorgeous!!!!!
    Your narrative makes me smile too and we can all relate to the late night online shopping and having to make it worth the postage. 😊

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