FO: Minion Rattle

 My youngest sister has decided she wants to learn to crochet. She has seen all the chunky stuffed animals made with fuzzy yarn on instagram and pinterest and wants to make her own. Now that she lives near me again, I'm working on teaching her. We are starting simple with the bird from the Craftsy Woodland Animals Class, but I needed something to work on myself so that I could demonstrate the stitches for her. We started the first weekend in September, but given that we both have kids and she just bought a house, we didn't have time again until 3 weeks later, lol. I reserved this project to only be worked on while I was teaching her, so he took 3 weeks even though it actually only took a couple of hours. Anyway, let's meet the minion!

I used the Minions pattern by Jenni Ferwerda, which is free on Ravelry. The pattern has 3 different shaped minions, so I used the twinkie shaped one - so this is Kevin. There was really no rhyme or reason to me picking this guy, it just happened that way. My sister's husband is obsessed with minions and they just had a baby back in June, so I decided that my project would be a rattle for her baby. He can't really enjoy the characters much yet, but I figured adding a rattle and making it something that had lots of chewable appendages would be the best way to go. So he got a minion, lol.

I grabbed acrylic yarn from my stash to make this. These are I Love This Yarn in Yellow and Gray Mist, and the rest are Vanna's Choice in Colonial Blue, Black, and White. All in all this was a good example to use for teaching purposes but still keep it simple and interesting for myself. You make the twinkie body shape, then do the legs, then the eyes and mouth, then the arms. The only change I made was putting a rattle in the middle of the body. The pattern is very straight forward. The only part that could use a bit more explanation is the suspenders - the pattern just says to embroider suspenders, no mention of what stitch to use or anything like that. I used a chain stitch because I knew it would be the simplest, but if I wasn't familiar with embroidery I would not have known what to do for that feature.

I went with baby safe eyes because obviously. This was meant to be chewed on from the very beginning, so I couldn't justify shank eyes. For my eyes, I just used the same black yarn and chain stitched a circle then added a white French knot with embroidery floss. I find that the French knot is key to not having your item have "creepy eyes" as my sister was worried they would be. You have to give them that little glint or they seem like dead eyes. I spent a decent amount of time on the eyes and glasses alone just to make sure everything was even so it didn't throw off the look and I'm pleased with how he turned out. I also forgot to add the strap to his goggles, so I chain stitched that last.

My nephew is still a bit young to quite know what to do with this offering, but he likes the color contrast and the rattling sound because he just stares at it and sometimes wiggles excitedly, lol. He was a bit too wiggly to get a not blurry photo, actually.

And he has already christened his minion with a chewing session! The ultimate baby seal of approval. I know once this little guy gets a handle on grabbing things, he will be all over this toy.

This was a very fun little project that was not too complicated to teach and talk while I worked on it. That's a good project in my book :)