FO: Pinglewin

There are many reasons to make toys, usually involving a gift idea or an occasion. Other times you see a pattern and it just needs to be made for no good reason. This is one of those patterns that was just so crazy that it needed to be made.

Pinglewin by Anna Maltz is much more than just a normal, cute but derpy looking penguin. At first glance, all seems normal, right?

But it's not! This penguin can remove her black parts! Isn't that just the most ridiculous idea you've heard in a long time? I just love it for the mere novelty of the thing, lol. The black piece is knit as a "hoodie", and it can be removed from Pinglewin at will. I saw the cute penguins others had made and just jumped right into making my own without looking through the pattern first. I made the penguin itself first, which was pretty straight forward as far as knit toys go. Then I started on the hoodie. Holy cow, was that the craziest shape I have ever knitted! But I got there in the end, so clearly this is a good pattern.

Here's the front and back view. It's hard to see here, but the back has really neat shaping lines created by the knitting itself. It almost looks like a spine on the back center with black undies at the bottom (you can kind of see some white at the line I mean on the bottom). Another interesting thing is that you knit the hoodie right side out, but you weave in the ends on the knit side, flipping the purl side out for the finished item. This gives the penguin a neat texture.

 Pinglewin herself is knitted in I Love This Yarn from Hobby Lobby in their Antique White color while her beak is Red Heart Super Saver in Gold. You knit the body first, which looks like a bowling pin with feet, then you knit the arms. Interestingly the pattern has you knit the entire thing, leaving a hole in the crotch between the legs which you use to stuff the piece at the end. This made the knitting much less fiddly then if you would stuff as you go, so I really appreciated this. Adding the arms was interesting because you just have to finish everything else, then put the hoodie on and eye ball where you think they should go to fit the hoodie. Also I opted to knit the beak right on the penguin's face instead of sewing it on separately. It was a bit of a wrestle to make this way, but I love the result. The toy is a bit bigger then I thought it would be, but that makes it much more hug-able.

I seriously love the derpy face mine has, lol. Once you knit the beak, you embroider the eyes and give a little facial definition. Then you put the hoodie on and mark where your eyes should go there. The pattern has you use buttons for eyes, and I liked the pattern example with the little buttons but hers had 4 holes in the buttons and the only ones I found in my stash in that size only had 2 holes. I decided to just go with it, so now my Pinglewin looks a bit confused, lol.

And here's the hoodie without the penguin. It's pretty interesting looking by itself - kind of like a hoodie bathing suit with eyes, lol. It also made for a bank robber look before the bird had a beak die to the ski mask effect of the beak hole. Basically this thing was ridiculous all the way round the entire time of making it. I love it. You can kind of see the design lines better in the back photo here. Pretty cool. 

Derp!

So now I have an awesomely interactive penguin in my collection :) Anna made a pink bunny suit hoodie for Easter, and I'm really loving the idea of making different outfits to make Pinglewin a seasonably appropriate decoration. We will see if that happens. In the meantime I'm just enjoying that judgmental face in the corner of my sewing room.