Victory!

[firstfrost]

(Shh! Secret Posting That treiza can't see!)

Yesterday, I finished the lace stole I've been working on since June, and decided to start something little. Now, when treiza was out here, she saw Tentaculus and decided he was adorable and she wanted a cuttlefish too. After she left, though, mjperson set me straight.

"treiza doesn't really want a cuttlefish, she wants a chocobo."
"... But she asked for a cuttlefish!"
"That's because she doesn't know she can have a chocobo instead."

Now, hopefully, this isn't going to be one of these things like rifmeister not liking pirates any more, and chocobos are no longer the Thing, because I made a chocobo. He's based on the pattern for a Mauritius Dodo here, which seems to be the pattern that people adapt to make chocobos, but my chocobo is Different.

Like the dodo, all the other amigurumi chocobos (like this one or these) are sitting birds, with their feet stuck out in front of them.



My chocobo stands up.

Oh, yeah, and I finished my lace stole:

But... my chocobo stands up! I am quite ridiculously pleased with myself. I think there's a lesson here about gratification and amounts of work, but I'm not sure it's one I should take to heart.

Anyway, don't tell! Chocobo heading West soon.

(Edited to no longer be Secret, since the chocobo has arrived.)

Comments

[shumashi.livejournal.com]

I'm with mjperson. She wants a chocobo. And it's darn cute. :)

[eowyns.livejournal.com]

That's awesome! I agree that the chocobo is far better and am really impressed at the standing up. Really. wow. Nope, can't figure out how you got that to balance so well.

Standing up

[merastra.livejournal.com]

Cool! The standing up is definitely your Unique Selling Point. Is there wire in the legs?

[kelkyag]

Sweet!

It looks like the legs are felted rather than crochetted?

Re: Standing up

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Yup, the legs are pipe cleaners wrapped in brown felted felt.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Yup. My experience with octopodes is that pipe cleaners try to escape from the ends of small knitted/crochet tubes (and that it's hard to totally cover up the pipe cleaner). I was hoping that the felting would end up thinner than it did, but it'll do. :)

[remcat.livejournal.com]

Well, if SHE doesn't want it....

Seriously, it's adorable. I love that it stands up.

Beautiful lace, as always. I'm four-and-a-half repeats (and a very long kitchener -- 166 stiches!) away from finishing my first lace project. Speaking of ... do I block before or after grafting the two halves together?

[nuclearpolymer.livejournal.com]

Wow...I am imagining you as a creator goddess, making all these animals that then become animate and run around populating the earth.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

I'd graft first and then block. If you wanted to be really precise, you might graft, then pin it out, then adjust the tension of the Kitchener stitches, and only *then* weave in the tail. Then you'd be more sure that the stitch size was the same on the graft as on the rest of the piece.

[mijven.livejournal.com]

Even if it wasn't what she wanted, it is now! Adorable!

[ricedog.livejournal.com]

She could be in the flavor text for XIV! If only Square knew.

[mathhobbit.livejournal.com]

That is a totally awesome chocobo.

Pattern adaptations:

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

For the record and future google-searchers, the changes I made to the dodo pattern are basically:

I did the wings as one piece instead of two, used another adapted wing as the tail, and did a mini-wing as the crest. (three small loops instead of four, and two larger loops). The beak is the very front bit of the dodo’s beak. The neck is longer than in the original dodo, and the legs are basically the same pattern as the head, over pipe cleaners wrapped in felt and needle-felted together.