Solo: A Star Wars Crochet Story

I went to see Solo: A Star Wars Story at the weekend, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was exciting, full of humour, action and double-crosses, and it was great to see younger versions of Han, Chewie and Lando (not to mention the Millenium Falcon).

Inspired by this, I decided to crochet those characters as they appear in the film, tweaking the patterns in Star Wars Crochet and Star Wars Even More Crochet.

Han was pretty easy, I just made him with a black shirt, rather than the cream shirt and waistcoat he wears in Episode IV. Then I crocheted him a brown jacket, using the pattern for Finn's jacket. I made it one row shorter and added black sections on the shoulders (it wasn't until I saw the film that I realised that the black panel extends along the back, so I'll have to change that).

Chewbacca doesn't wear much, but the bandolier he slings over his shoulder is a bit different, and has an extra section over the other shoulder. I basically crocheted less of the grey bobbles on the main strap, and did another smaller strap, again with less grey bobbles.

Lando is always a snazzy dresser, in fact in the film you will see that he has a whole room just for his capes on the Falcon! I made him with a yellow shirt and orange belt, and sewed a black triangle at the neck of his shirt. His cloak is black, and he has a thin black scarf round his neck. I gave him a tiny beard as well as a moustache, sewed little sideburns coming from the edge of his hair, and sewed a line into his hair to give him a parting on his right.

I hope you enjoy the film too, just let me know if you need any more info on the changes I made and I'll try to write them up for you.

Star Wars Crochet in Spanish

I've recently been sent a copy of my Star Wars Crochet book that has now been published in Spanish. I can't speak Spanish myself, but here are all the details on the publisher's website.

Mi libro Star Wars ganchillo está ahora disponible en español. Todos los detalles aquí en el sitio web de la editorial: http://www.planetadelibros.com/kit-star-wars-crochet-libro-201117.html

Star Wars Crochet Kit

 

Well, my Star Wars Crochet kit is finally out, at least in the US.

The kit contains a book with the patterns for 12 Star Wars characters - Boba Fett, C-3PO, Chewbacca, Darth Vader, Wicket the Ewok, Han Solo, Jabba the Hutt, Luke Skywalker (Jedi), Princess Leia, R2-D2, Stormtrooper and Yoda - as well as the yarn, hook and eyes to make Yoda and the Stormtrooper.

 

The kit is published by Thunder Bay in the US, you can find it listed on Amazon, although it will be available in other stores. It's also due to be published shortly in Australia/New Zealand by Hardie Grant under their Chirpy Bird imprint. Hopefully it will be released in other countries too, but there's no information about that at the moment. It is listed on Amazon UK though, due out in May.

 

It's really exciting to see my patterns made into a book like this. I love the photographs of the characters, mixed with stills from the films in the book, and it was wonderful to be told that Lucasfilm were thrilled with the way the book came out!



Happy Star Wars Day!

I hope all you Star Wars fans out there are enjoying Star Wars Day - if you don't know it's called that because of the terrible pun: May the 4th be with you (May the Force be with you). Anyway, my amigurumis are enjoying themselves (maybe I need to crochet a Cantina for them to party in!)

You may spot a new amigurumi, a Jawa. I've been working on the pattern for him, and it'll be in my Etsy shop very soon. Just keep checking here to see when it's ready.

Have fun!

Star Wars Mini Amigurumi

Well, I've finally done it! I've designed all my Star Wars amigurumi to my satisfaction, written up the patterns, photographed them, put the patterns together and put them all on Etsy!

I've been working on these little Star Wars guys on and off for a couple of years. Partly inspired by my and my children's love of Star Wars, and the way Star Wars Lego looks so cute, I realised that I wanted to crochet mini versions of all my favourite characters. It's taken so long because of wanting to keep them stylistically similar even though the characters are very varied. I also wanted them to be different sizes, so that Leia is taller than R2-D2, and Vader is taller than Han, for example, but not perfectly proportionally, or Chewie ends up being too tall. As it is, Yoda is 2.5" tall and Chewbacca is 4.5" tall, with the rest fitting in between them.

I made Yoda first, he's pretty simple and easily identifiable, then Leia (my favourite character, the one I identify with) whose iconic hairstyle is perfectly suited to be reproduced in crochet. Neither of these two had legs, Yoda with his robe and Leia her dress, so when it came to most of the other characters I wasn't sure how to make them. I knew I wanted them to have big feet, and to stand up easily, and so I made them without separate legs, but simply defined them with yarn afterwards, a solution which I'm really happy with.

Some of them took longer than others to perfect. I wasn't sure if C-3PO would work, but I was happy with him straight away. Vader, on the other hand, I just couldn't get right. His head, his face mask, how much detail to give him. Since his costume is almost entirely black it's very hard to define any details. I made him several times with a flat triangular mask and it wasn't until I made it more three-dimensional that I was satisfied.

The Ewok was tough, too. I made him in a completely different way with his hood as part of his head, which I thought I liked, but when I came to write the pattern up it just seemed too unnecessarily complicated. since I'd just been making my crocheted cork knights I realised I could use a similar technique to make a simple separate hood, which I much preferred.

Apart from fine-tuning his height, I liked my Chewbacca, which I made with an alpaca mix yarn then brushed, but I realised that finding that particular type of yarn might be difficult. So I also made him using a normal smooth acrylic yarn that had various different browns in it and which brushed up just as nicely with a wire pet brush.

Anyway, I'm very happy with the finished patterns. If they prove to be popular I'll have to work on some more characters - I think I'll do Boba Fett and Obi Wan next. If you want to see more photos, check out my Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/96575205@N00/), and if you'd like to buy any of the patterns just go to my Etsy shop (http://www.lucyravenscar.etsy.com/).

***Latest news July 2014***

 

Not all these patterns are available for sale now, as they are going to be included in a new Star Wars crochet book, due to be published Spring 2015.