Christmas FO: Sarah and Duck

Sarah and Duck ... QUACK!
(If you've ever seen this show, won't you agree that it has the strangest non-theme-song-opening ever? lol)

Scrolling through my blog feed back in November, I saw AmiguruMei put out a new free pattern for Sarah and Duck, characters from a kids book series and Netflix show my nephew loves. I told his mom about it and when she said she thought he would love them, I knew I needed to make them up for his Christmas gift :)

This is the Sarah and Duck pattern by Mei Li Lee of Amigurumei.com. She designed her patterns with Paintbox Yarns Cotton DK in all their various colors, but I made mine out of stashed worsted weight yarn so mine are all different brands because I was going for color accuracy. This made things a bit complicated because she used different hook sizes for different pieces, some sizes of hooks that I didn't even have (maybe they were steel hooks?) so I tried to proportionally size my hook down accordingly. This resulted in making a few pieces a few times as well as a duck that is much larger than the example, but no one will know that but me :)

For Sarah, I used Red Heart Soft in Off White for her skin; mystery thrift store acrylic in green for her hat, brown for her shoes, and medium pink for her jacket; Vanna's Choice in dusty rose for her cheeks and jacket, black for her hair, and cranberry for her zipper pull; Everyday Soft Worsted in Snow White for her eyes. Her mouth, eyes, and zipper are embroidered with black embroidery floss.

The pattern has you outline the eyes in embroidery floss and glue it down with fabric glue - I'm not a fan of glue. This is going to be played with hopefully and glue just sounds like it's going to fall off. I made things a bit more complicated, but I tried to back stitch around the eyes to outline them. It's not as clean a circle as the example doll, but I like that it is all embroidered on. Even if she looks like a kid from South Park now, lol. I really love the color of Sarah's hat - I've had this yarn a while and always wanted to use it for something. It's just an awesome color.

Next came Duck :) I changed some of the suggested colors to be more like the actual characters, so the yarns I used were: Red Heart With Love in Jadeite for the head and Tan for the feet; Vanna's Choice in Linen for the body and Dusty Rose for the cheeks; Everyday Soft Worsted in Snow White for the eyes and Baby Yellow for the beak.

I really love Duck's facial expression :) I think the embroidery turned out better around his eyes - less South Park looking, lol. I was also thrilled to use that baby yellow for something - I've had it for years and never felt it was right for anything. Yay for stashes!

So that was the first part of my nephew's Christmas present :) He slept with them both that night, so I take that as a good sign. I definitely recommend the pattern if you have a Sarah & Duck fan - it's a free pattern, so even if you just want to make a cute duck, you're good to go.