Fantasy Amigurumi - Elves

You may have seen from my previous post that I'm working on a series of Fantasy amigurumi characters. I've already designed a pattern to make Halflings, and now my pattern to make Elves is finished. Elves originally came from European mythology and folklore and have now become part of modern fantasy books, films and games.

I've made four different Elves, two male and two female, to give a selection of options for people who want to make their own Elves.

Elf Warrior: He has long blond hair, pulled back into a braid, and a green tunic. He also has a separate hooded cloak and a sword.

 

 

 Elf Archer: He has dark, mid-length hair and a tunic with wrist guards. I made him a cloak and a bow with a quiver full of arrows.

Elf Princess: She has long dark hair with a silver head-dress, and a long blue dress.

Elf Sorceress: She is wearing a short top, a long skirt with splits, arm protectors and shoulder armour. She has pale mid-length hair and long pointed ears, and she carries a staff with a magical orb at the top.

 

 

All the Elves are about 6.5" tall, compared to the Halflings that are 5.5" tall. I'm now working on a Dwarf pattern, but I'm not sure whether to make a female Dwarf. As a Discworld fan, I always think female Dwarfs should look the same as male ones, but I don't think this is the case in various games, or in The Hobbit from the glimpses we saw of Dale at the start of An Unexpected Journey. I'd really appreciate hearing people's views on this.

The Elf pattern is available to download from my Etsy shop.

Fantasy Amigurumi - Halfling

For quite a while now I've been wanting to design some patterns for various fantasy characters; peoples and creatures that appear in all sorts of folklore, books, films and games. I decided they needed to be a bit bigger than my Star Wars characters (about 3.5" tall) so they would have a bit more detail, but it's taken a bit of experimentation to come up with the right body shape.

 

I made myself a little Frodo some time ago (see him in this post) and so the first pattern I started work on was for a Halfling. This is a generic name for the 'little folk' that appear in folklore, that often keep themselves hidden and can either be helpful or mischievous towards humans. In modern fantasy stories and games these little people often live alongside other fantasy races and have a variety of names and customs. Usually they are good-natured, not too war-like, and enjoy their food and home comforts. They are often portrayed with curly hair and wearing slightly more modern clothes - waistcoats and jackets rather than tunics - than other fantasy races. I think this comes from the fact that belief in hobs, brownies and similar creatures was still around relatively recently, so they are imagined in clothes from the 17th and 18th Century rather than the more medieval costumes favoured by Elves and Dwarfs. I've noticed that Halflings in games often appear as engineer or rogue-type characters; due to their size they're not obviously great warriors but they are quick and good with their hands so those sorts of professions suit them better.

 

My Halfling pattern, available now in my Etsy shop contains all the information needed to make a male or female Halfling, about 5.5" tall, with a choice of clothing. You can make a male Halfling with or without a waistcoat, and with a separate jacket, hat or cloak.

The female Halfling comes with the option of the traditional look with a bodice and skirt, or you can go for the engineer/steampunk look and make a Halfling with spiky hair and goggles.

 

 

I'm now working on a pattern to make Elves, again with a selection of looks, and then I will probably work on a pattern for Dwarfs. After that I welcome any suggestions, though I'd like to do orcs/goblins, perhaps some classical creatures such as minotaurs and fauns, and some human warriors, maybe with a few historical ones (Roman, Viking) mixed in with the fantasy.

Flappy Owls, and lots of other stuff I've been making

I don't seem to have posted here for a while, but I've definitely been busy.

I have just finished testing my Flappy Owl pattern, that appeared in Inside Crochet magazine last year. I can now sell it myself, so I made two more owls to test it, and because I wanted to see what Hedwig would look like in a pullover! It's a fun pattern to make, and I would love to try out all sorts of different colour combinations. You can buy the pattern in my Etsy shop.

 

Over the winter I've been working on all sorts of amigurumi, for friends, presents, and even for myself. I'm a fan of the old tv show, Blake's 7, and so I made a friend a little Blake and Avon. They were finished late just before conventions so I didn't get good photos, but here's one he took:

I also made myself one of the creatures that appears in one of the episode, a hairy, horned critter called Og, to take to the convention.

I then decided to make a present for one of my nephews. As he likes Romans I thought I'd make him an amigurumi one, and because I'm a Doctor Who fan I based it on Rory. I had a lot of fun making the helmet.

Then, as a present to myself, I used the same basic pattern I'd been using for Rory, Blake and Avon and made a little Frodo, with a removable cloak. I'll probably develop this pattern so it could be used to make all sorts of other characters.

I've also been busy making various fun little toys for our school's Christmas bazaar, so I'll start writing up the patterns for those and posting them here. And I've been working on my Totoro patterns, improving them and coming up with a version of the grey totoro as well as smaller versions of the blue and white ones. I'll be posting the completed patterns for those very soon.

Fierce Little Dragon

One of the first crochet patterns I wrote was for a dragon - my 'fierce but friendly really dragon'. I love dragons, and it's hard to find nice toys of them, so that was a real incentive to make one myself. Lots of people liked it and asked for the pattern, so eventually I wrote up my notes and put them on Craftster and Livejournal. The notes were quite rough, and though many people had no problem following them, some asked if I could write the pattern up properly. And, finally, I got round to it!

I had to make a dragon to check the pattern, and while I was doing that I tweaked a few bits - I used to crochet a lot more loosely, and I found some parts came up too small - and I used different stitches on the wings to make them much stiffer.

I won't post the pattern here as it's seven pages long, but it is available as a free download from Ravelry: Fierce Little Dragon free pattern

Edited to add: this pattern has now been translated into Spanish by Ana, over at her blog.

Edited to add 2: this pattern has now kindly been translated into French by FilACroche on Ravelry. You can download it here

Witches and Wizards

Fantasy has always been my favourite genre of books and films, so I thought I'd design some cute lttle amigurumis of various classic fantasy characters. Given that it's nearly halloween it seemed like a good idea to start with witches and wizards.

There are lots of great books featuring witches and wizards - Terry Pratchett's Discworld books have brilliant witches like the formidable Granny Weatherwax and the young but powerful Tiffany Aching, and Unseen University is home to a wonderful collection of  bickering wizards. One of the great things about the Harry Potter books is the fun J K Rowling has with all the eccentric characters in their amazing outfits and Tolkien, of course, created a classic and iconic character with Gandalf, the archetypal old, wise wizard.

One of my favourite books when I was little was The Witch Family by Eleanor Estes (if you've never heard of it you can take a look at some of it here: http://tiny.cc/wpl9p). It has lovely line drawings by Edward Ardizzone of a little witch girl, and the most adorable witch baby, which were definitely an inspiration for my designs.

My pattern is now for sale in my Etsy shop - and with it there are instructions for all the variations to make a mini witch or  wizard (just 4.5" tall) with several different looks.

Dragonet Pattern

Have you ever wanted your own pet dragon? Well, generally they're a bit big to fit in the house, so what you need is a Dragonet, a small or young dragon. I've finally finished my latest pattern, so now you can crochet yourself a Dragonet, a fantastical friend who will hang around your home.

Small for a dragon, but pretty big for an amigurumi - they are about 17.5" long and have a wingspan of 22". Of course, if you're a Lego person, they are just the right size for a ride, as one of my pattern testers discovered:
 http://tossedcookies.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/just-another-bedtime-story/

I'm very happy, after a certain amount of experimentation, with the wings. I managed to make them fairly stiff without using any wire or anything else apart from crochet and stuffing. I also tried out different eyes - they can be made with either safety eyes (ones with a slit rather than a round pupil look best, I think) or with round beads - the red Dragonet has clear glass ones.

If you want to make your own Dragonet, the pattern is for sale in my Etsy shop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/lucyravenscar