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.

 

 

Wicket the Ewok

A few years ago I made my Star Wars mad son an Ewok amigurumi, Wicket to be precise. I posted it up on Craftster, and even managed to write a tutorial on how to make it. It was fairly rough, so in an attempt to practice my pattern-writing skills and try out making PDFs (in the hope that I will be able to put some of my patterns on Etsy) I now present the latest updated version:

Download PDF

**Edited to add**

I know the link above can be a bit unreliable, so I've now also put up a recently updated version of the pattern as a download in my Ravelry store: http://www.ravelry.com/stores/lucy-ravenscar-designs

My claim to fame

I never know how to start the first post of a blog, and this is my first proper blog, so I don't have much experience. Why have I started this? Well, I like making things, and whilst I already post photos up on Flickr and show things off on Craftster (as Angry Angel), I thought it would be nice to have one place where I could keep everything together.

I have a few projects that I've been working on - I'm re-writing my free patterns and will post them here, I've recently finished a new crochet creature ready to go into my Etsy shop, and I'm busy designing cute little Star Wars amigurumis - but for my first post I thought I'd share my geeky crochet claim to fame.

Nearly two years ago I was contacted by a television production company asking if they could use a photo of Wicket the Ewok that I had crocheted. I said yes, but never heard anything else from them.

Then, last autumn an eagle-eyed crafter contacted me and said she'd seen him on a Channel 4 programme, Bring Back.... Star Wars, with Justin Lee Collins. I checked out the repeat, and there he was! The show has Justin contacting the various actors from Star Wars and trying to get them back together. He had a big board with photos with all the actors, generally publicity shots from their agents. But bizarrely, for Warwick Davies they had a copy of my picture! Anyway, I was very excited to see my Ewok on telly. Here it is on YouTube, you can see the picture after 4m 30s : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhdbFVMY6DM&feature=related

However, this was just the beginning. Not long after that I had an email from Hat Trick Productions, asking if they could use my photo of a crocheted Dalek and Doctor Who for an episode of Have I Got News For You with Tom Baker as the guest host. Of course, I said yes (they paid me too, which was even better!), and since HIGNFY is filmed only a day before it's shown, I soon got to see my creations up on screen. Having advance notice was good because I got to tell a few friends and family so they could watch too.

Here's the clip on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pYj82q2SDQ - my photo turns up 1m 20s in. I was rather pleased that none of the panellists were rude, it even got a couple of jokes!

So, that's got me started. If anyone would like to make their own Wicket the Ewok watch this space. I originally put up a simplified tutorial on Craftster, but I've written into a more conventional format and as soon as I've given it a test, I'll be posting my pattern here.