Christmas FO: The Mounted Bass

Another project I had to really do some hard thinking on was what to make for my father-in-law. He's a big fisherman, so my husband said I should make him a bass, but I couldn't see him just having a stuffed animal around. I half-heartedly searched Ravelry for patterns and when I saw this one I knew it was meant to be.

This is the Mounted Bass pattern by Amanda Lang. I had seen the faux taxidermy craze with other animals, but I never thought of doing a fish the same way! I had almost all the colors in my stash, and I knew I could slap this out quick enough to get it ready in time. I even had a wood plaque hanging around from my photography days as well as wood-plaque-colored spray paint. This project really just fell into place at the right time :)

That doesn't mean the project was completely easy. I must confess that I am spoiled by the quality and detail given in FreshStitches amigurumi patterns. It's not that I need someone to hold my hand - I've made enough animals by now to know how to put things together and what stitches to use - what  I missed in this pattern were the specific spots to attach the extremities. I take that kind of info for granted when it's available and only seem to notice when it's not there, and that's only because it takes so. much. longer. Seriously, it's much quicker to count out stitches and put things on a certain row than to look back and forth at the example photos and your project to see if you put the piece in the right spot. To me, it all goes back with giving as much info as possible to make sure that customer ends up with a finished item that looks as close to the original as possible - that's why people buy patterns, right? Anyway, this isn't to say that the pattern is bad at all - I still ended up with a passable bass and everyone liked him. This extra info just would've ensured the result and saved me time.

Anyway, I used Vanna's Choice yarn in Olive and White as well as Caron Simply Soft in Dark Sage to make this. Since I planned to mount him to the plaque all along, I only made one side fin and only attached one eye, lol. I kind of wish I had added the second eye now, but it's too late now. He's still cute :) Getting the mouth to lay smooth with the body shape was a challenge, but we got there in the end. I also kind of wish my plaque had been a little bigger, but I'm not worried about it. Again, he's still cute.

So there you have it - a mounted bass! I think it's a really cute idea for fishermen - imagine all the other fish options. You could make a mounted Nemo and really freak a kid out, lol. I'm glad it turned out so cute and my father-in-law liked it :)

Crochet Update: Magnetic Fishing Game

So, November 1st was my nephew's 1st birthday! Very exciting :) He's walking everywhere now and he is into everything, lol. I've always seen the magnetic fishing games and thought they were so cute. When my planned gift fell through (it is lost in the many boxes around my house somewhere), I decided Luke needed a fish game for his birthday. So I whipped this up!

Isn't it cute?! I just love how it turned out. I used the Wal the Tiny Fish Pattern by FreshStitches, but I modified it a bit to make it smaller. I only increased up to 30 stitches, and I only did 5 rows of plain sc for the centers. I also left off the eye balls and just embroidered eyes, and I left off the fins. But the coolest part is this:

Their mouths are magnetic! I used 5/8" metal washers and just crocheted through the center hole - basically it worked like a magic loop but with metal - and the stitches encased the washer. So the black mouths are another modification, but I still just did 6 stitches around them and that covered them just enough.

See how you can just see a little bit of metal through the black? That made it to where the magnet would still grab tight enough to pick up the fish.

Each fish looks just like this and making them smaller really helped with their overall weight, making them easier to be picked up by the magnet. I only stuffed them a little bit - there is a little ball of stuffing in the body and another smaller ball in the tail, just to give them some dimension. I used all yarns from my stash since these fish only took about 22 - 25 yards each. So some of them are Vanna's Choice (cranberry and radiant orange), some are Red Heart With Love (blue hawaii, violet, and daffodil), and even some Red Heart Super Saver (spring green). The black yarn is Everyday Soft Worsted. Once i got the pattern figured out, each fish took my about 35 minutes - definitely not bad!

After I got the fish finished, I had to make the pole. I bought a 5/8" wide dowel rod and cut it to about 15" long. My dad and I ground down the edges and I sanded them smooth. Then we drilled a hole about 1" down from the top. I played around with several types of magnets, and this circle one worked the best for my quicky project. I took some white sport weight yarn (type unknown - I've had this over 10 years, lol) and I threaded it through the hole in the pole 3 times, then tied several knots and secured them with fray check. I measured out about 12" or so of white yarn, then wrapped through the hole in the magnet, tying several knots and also securing them with fray check. I certainly don't want it coming undone :) It was actually really easy to put this together and now I even have plenty of parts to make it again.

It ended up being a huge hit! He may not understand it right now, but he thinks it's pretty cool that his pole picks up the fishes :) Also all the other kids at the party jumped at it and played around with it, so this was definitely a good idea - and kids of all ages played with it! Even my dad :) My sister has already requested different types of magnetic sea creatures to add to the set for Christmas. And when he gets a bit older, we can use this to teach him his colors. Gotta love a multi-purpose toy:)

I am thrilled with how this set came out. It's cute, quick, and well loved - you can't get better than that!

Crochet Update: It's Nemo!

When my cousin announced that his girlfriend was having a baby, I immediately knew I wanted to make them a stuffed animal :) The baby is a boy and he's due in July. They are making the baby room Finding Nemo/Under the Sea themed so I decided to try my hand at making a Nemo :)

He took some serious research and forethought to design. I used the Fins the Fish pattern from Crocheted Softies by Stacey Trock as the base and then just altered things from there. I thought I was being so smart using all yarn that I had on hand - Everyday Worsted in Black, Red Heart With Love in White and in Mango - that is, until I RAN OUT OF ORANGE!

Yep, that's right. I got as far as you see above - literally just had to make the tail - and I ran out of the orange yarn. I've never run out of yarn before, so I was really bummed. I had made the whole thing that you see above in just 2 nights, but with the yarn shortage it took another 3 weeks to finish! I ended up having to order the yarn from Joann's (instead of driving to Orlando just for that), so that's what took so long. Once I got the yarn I was able to finish it in about 1 hour and that's only because I would make a tail and then pull it all out because I didn't like the shape. I was so happy when it was finally done!

The Gordo helped me decide on eye ball size :) This was my husband's idea and the dog was less than thrilled about it, let me tell you, lol. But it was just too funny. The eyes are completely baby safe, made entirely of yarn with little french knots of white embroidery floss to add character. I hate just the plain black eyes (it makes them look kind of dead, in my opinion).

Anyway, back to the pattern. I basically just used the eyes and body shape from the pattern in the book and changed the rest. I eye-balled where the stripes should go and I made the center stripe twice as thick as the other two to be like a real clown fish. When the muzzle was done, I though the would look cute with a smile so I used excess black yarn and embroidered him one. I like how it came out :)

The color changes on the bottom came out nice a clean. Also here you can see the difference in the size of the fins. Nemo's right fin is his "lucky fin" and it's smaller than the other. I made sure that was pretty evident in my creation. I made the fins by making a chain of black about as long as I wanted, then doing 1 row of black all the way around the chain - as in on both sides of it. Then I would switch to orange and increase/decrease as I saw fit. That's how all the fin pieces were made and I think they came out pretty well. 

I'm seriously thrilled with how cute he is - I want one for myself! He's bigger than I thought he would be too, which means he's squish-able and awesome :) I'm bummed that I missed presenting him at the baby shower, but I hope they love him just the same! This is probably the most "designing" I've done thus far with my animals and I'm very proud of the result :)