FO: Uni the Unicorn

Continuing on my crochet baby toy adventure lately, I had another gift I needed to make. My best friend, Leigh, had her 3rd baby and her 1st girl at the end of January. I had the flu at the time, so I didn't want to risk a visit (even though she was ridiculously cute and I really wanted to meet her), so I waited until all signs of illness were gone. I wanted to make her a meaningful gift, so I started wracking my brain about what I could do when I remembered something that Leigh had made for the baby.

Leigh was inspired by a very pretty children's book called Uni the Unicorn by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Brigitte Barrager. The book has beautiful illustrations, and Leigh decided to paint her own copy of the cover for the baby's room. Didn't it turn out great?! She's so talented :) I knew that making a Uni the Unicorn toy would be a good choice, so I looked through Ravelry to find a suitable pattern. Oddly enough the one that had the best body shape for Uni was actually from a Creativebug class.

Twinkie Chan has a class to make your own Crocheted Unicorn on Creativebug. The class includes the pdf pattern and then the video walks you through every step to make your own unicorn. I made slight modifications to make my unicorn more like Uni, but overall the pattern worked really well and is very simple to make.

I dug through my stash to find fun yarns that would match the inspiration picture. I used Red Heart Super Saver in white for the body (an easily washed acrylic workhorse). The hooves are actually made from a rayon metallic yarn I acquired by unraveling a thrifted sweater. It was really the perfect yarn - gold and sparkly :) The horn is made from Aunt Lydia's Iced Bamboo size 3 crochet thread - I held a strand of Aqua Ice and Icicle together as one to get the sort of twist in the colors.

The hair was the most fun to choose. I used Premier Everyday Soft Worsted in Aubergine for the main purple color and mixed it with Red Heart With Love in Hot Pink, Golden Bamboo Fingering in Rose Red, and the gold I used for the hooves. I think the hair turns out really fun with just a bit of sparkle.

For the eyes I went with some of my beloved Suncatcher 6mm ones in teal. They are safety eyes, but just look at how vibrant the color is! For them being only 6 mm that's pretty impressive :) They seemed the perfect color so I just had to use them.

I ended up stuffing the legs on this. I left them unstuffed at first, but when I sewed them on the unicorn just couldn't hold herself up with such flimsy legs. Stuffed it is! I added just enough stuffing to get them to stand firm and now she's able to stand up just fine.

And that is my unicorn. Well, Elliot's unicorn :) I was finally able to go visit her at the beginning of March, and while she's a little young to really do much with her toy right now I hope she grows to love it. I added a rattle to the tummy, plus that gold yarn is so sparkly and the legs are so easy to put in a small mouth that I'm sure this will get some use, lol.

And here's the beautiful little girl with her unicorn :) Isn't she adorable? And look at all that hair! I just love her. Welcome to the world, Elliot :) I hope you enjoy your own little Uni.