FO: Who's Your Friend Who Likes To Play?

BING BONG! BING BONG! I decided to dress up as Joy for Halloween months ago, and I knew I was going to make my dress but that was all I had planned. Until about a month ago when I came across this fantastic free pattern on Ravelry. I knew I had to have a Bing Bong to hang out with Joy on Halloween :)

I used the Bing Bong pattern by Sabrina Somers (free on Ravelry - along with all the other characters as well!). The pattern calls for sport weight yarn, but I decided to use worsted weight instead since this project took so many small colors and I have so much more worsted weight in my stash. I used a size H hook with the worsted weight yarn.

The only yarn I had to buy for this project was the pink for his body - I didn't have enough of any pinks available. I went with Red Heart Super Saver in Perfect Pink because it was the best pink color available at Walmart, lol. Every other color was from my stash (hooray!). I did run into an issue on his jacket though. I didn't have two browns that were contrasting enough to use for his jacket and his gloves. I decided to make the gloves in brown and use gray for the jacket. All was well until I finished the body of the jacket ... and I didn't have enough yarn! I was on a serious time crunch (I didn't make most of him until 2 days before I needed him, lol), so I dug through my stash and made a "design choice"by using a gray yarn from the same line (Vanna's Choice) that was variegated instead of solid gray. It still had the original gray, so I went for it. I think he still looks just fine!

All of his features are actually sewn on in felt. I surprised myself with all the colors I had in my stash, lol, so I lucked out there. The eye circles are all thanks to Sizzix Paddle Punches - love those things! - the eye browns, eye whites, and mouth were just cut out freehand and stitched on. The pattern tells you to put garden wire in his trunk, but I didn't have any on hand so I skipped that and I just bend it every so often to keep its shape.

His flower is made up of multi colored felt circles all stitched on. The bow is the one place that I did not use the pattern. Honestly, I forgot to make the bow so when I was sewing everything else on, I just crocheted a few rows in the round, wrapped yarn in the center to cinch it in and called it done, ha ha. I think it looks just fine. I also really like the effect of the variegated yarn around the edge of the jacket. The jacket is actually crocheted as separate pieces - you first stitch the body of the jacket to the body, then you stitch the actual arms (meaning pink and brown and stuffed) on with the sleeves on the jacket. So his jacket is not removable at all. 

Another fun detail about this pattern is that you brush the yarn out for the bottom of the body and the tail. You just crochet it like normal, then brush violently with a cat brush to make it all fuzzy. It's a fairly good stress reliever, ha ha. I've done this once before when I made Chewbacca, but it's always kind of fun to do. 

And here were are at the party :) Bing Bong was a big hit, and I just put him in my bag whenever I needed to twist a balloon for the kids.

The whole gang! If I'd had time, you can bet I would've made the other characters too, lol. 

So that's the story of my Bing Bong :) My nephew loves him and asked me if he can play with him today. Because I used worsted weight yarn, he came out much bigger than the pattern says - mine is 16.5" tall, making him the perfect huggable size for a toddler. This guy was a lot of work, but he came out great and really amped up my costume.