Lollo Progress and a tiny Easter Basket

Lollo now has eyes! I decided to go with felt eyes, as I thought they'd fair better than embroidered and safer than plastic. I also have started on Lollo's feet. I decided after the difficulty with the hands, that I'd do both feet at the same time. Which means this is going really slow! Double yarned hexagons take me forever with tiny needles. Once the feet are together, the legs will go much quicker.

Here's pictures of the last day or two's progress:
(the hexagons/pentagons are the toes, heels and one top foot)

And I did another project - great timing as well, as every part of it was on sale! Glitter tulles for 1.99 each and the basket for .99. I made a tutu with embroidery floss stringing them together and then glued them all to the rim of the basket. I added little white roses and a heart/wings pendant that were leftover from the Calvin's Hats. Whole thing took me about fifteen minutes, but I do love how it looks! This little one is for our Elizabeth.

Lollo - days 8-10

Being sick, I've been forced to go slow with Lollo (yes, that's right - I'm STILL sick! Over a week of sneezing, coughing yuckiness.) but, I've finally gotten both of his arms on and attached to the rest of his body.

The arms went ary , I'll admit. I'm not sure why. Both arms had a weird top hexagon attachment (the last one just wouldn't go on correctly both times, even though counting the stitches and doing it slowly says it should have went fine.) Then the paw of the second arm turned out noticeably bigger than the first arm - something I didn't notice until the arm was completely sewn up and stuffed. I managed to rig it pretty successfully, by just working with the method of how you do the eye indents. I also didn't notice until the arm was done and stuffed that second arm was wavy. I have NO idea why this could be, but the inner arm at the wrist actually seemed smaller than the outer, which should be impossible because each hexagon (double checked before sewing together) matched perfectly and were all the same size. Luckily, once it was attached to the bear, you couldn't really tell. I figure once it's played with, it'll probably look normal. It just was a bit odd while the whole body is stiff from not getting played with yet.

So, I did run into a few problems, but nothing major. I had to retry a few things and sometimes I just had to rig it, but Lollo looks great still and you can't tell where things went wrong (at least I can't.)

I bought the buttons to make Lollos arms jointed, but decided at the last minute not to. I decided against plastic eyes because of choking hazards, then realized I might as well stick to the "choking hazard free" bear and skip the buttons. Turns out, they aren't really needed, at least with how I did the arms. I took the inner top arm's hexagon and matched it the the shoulder's hexagon, then sewed with double yarn half way around the hexagon. I also sewed the under arm half way across the hexagon. This gives the arm security but mobility. I can still lift the arms and move them around without any buttons attached. Sewing around the full hexagon, as I had done with the head, I think would have made the arms too stiff and unmoving.

And last but not least, here's Lollo pictures! I put the bear on a glider to get a better idea about the size:

Lollo Day 7

Okay, finally sickness is going away! Yesterday I managed to pull myself together, crochet six hexagons and then put them all together, stuffed them and made the left arm. I was a little worried honestly, as I could actually fit my hand and arm into this bear's arm! (It went up a little past my elbow.) It's definitely not a small bear.

Today I have to make six more hexagons and two double yarn hexagons (which for some reason just take me forever). The last hexagon of the arm yesterday was so hard to attach for some reason. I even pinned it down and crocheted along perfectly, counting each stitch and it still didn't come out right at all. I undid it three times before just "making" it work (which really isn't very hard to do in dire circumstances, I found myself doing it often to the bottom of the body. You really can't tell in the finished product unless you really want to scour each shape and count each side to see how many stitches are there. It might make you go blind first!)

I may just stitch on the last hexagon instead of doing the make do way this time, as I have no idea what goes wrong and how to fix it. But in the end, it looks just fine and probably holds the stuffing in better.

I am a bit concerned if this bear gets a lot of use. The stuffing does stay in, as long as no little fingers try to wiggle in the big holes. I wonder if he's hugged enough if the stuffing will start coming out too. The holes in the motifs aren't terribly big, but they're not tiny either.

Here's some pictures from yesterday:

Day 7 & 8...cancelled!

Well, maybe not cancelled, but definitely moved. Just when I'm thinking that I can bust out the rest of this bear before the end of the weekend, needing to only do limbs yet, I get hit with a nasty sickness. I managed to crochet two double yarned hexagons and put them together before I was taken over by fevers and instability. My poor half-paw is sitting beside me, asking "aren't you going to finish me yet?" It's true, I'm no longer feverish and I probably could handle crocheting, but I'm just too drained to handle this new way of putting together hexagons. So, my new plan is to work on at least the one arm tomorrow, and get this bear finished by Wednesday. For now, Lollo only has one thing added to her since last time - a big pink glittery heart ribbon around her neck.

Lollo: day 6

I ended up getting much less done with Lollo than I originally thought I would, as DH surprised me with coming home early and taking me out to celebrate our anniversary so Lollo had to wait! But when we came back home and watched a movie, I picked Lollo back up and finished piecing together her head.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the head is MUCH easier to do than the body. I thought it would be harder, as you have to shape it and there's more dimensions to it but it really comes together quite naturally. I found that half way through I barely needed the instructions anymore because you could just see where the shapes needed to be filled in.

I love Lollo's ears. They're just adorable! They were pretty while making them and they so naturally form into ear shapes. Sewing them on seamlessly to an opened motif was interesting but not too difficult.

The pattern gives no say about how to attach the head to the body, so I did it my way. For some reason, in the pattern her attachments lay flat but mine poke out. As I very carefully followed every instruction, I'm not sure where I went wrong and I'm wondering if maybe it's the thicker yarn with the tiny hooks that are causing it to pucker. However, I don't mind the look and it came in handy at this part. I took the bottom pentagon at the base of the skull and the top pentagon on the body and matched them together. Since the seams pucker out, I just connected them through the seams. That way it's connected really well and it looks quite seamless. It makes the puckered look like it was on purpose as the two mesh well together. I'm sure it would have been much more difficult to securely attach the head without straining the motifs without the puckered lining.

This bear is a bit bigger than the normal pattern, but I adore the size. It's bigger than a standard teddy and gives lots of room to cuddle. I believe I'll stick with this size instead of trying to be more true to the pattern and using smaller ones.

Today, Day 7, I'll be working on the arms. I haven't gotten to start on them, or even read through the pattern yet, but I'm hoping I'll be able to finish at least one today if not both.

Here's Lollo last night:

(the lack of eyes still is because I decided to wait until the end to add the detailed bits. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to use for them.)

Lollo: Day 5/6

Lollo is coming along now! Who would have thought though that one bear head would take so long? I had hoped to get it all done yesterday, but it took all of my time to make the 6 hexagons, 5 pentagons (or is it the other way around?), modified ear patches, the ears, and the nose! Today's plan is to get it all stitched together and stuffed. I'm sure with how odd the stitching is on this that it'll probably take me all day, so my current plan looks like this:

Day 6 (today): crochet head pieces together, stuff, attach to body. Make eyes?
(still trying to decide if I should go with embroidered, felt or plastic eyes.)

Day 7: make arms

Day 8: stitch arms together, make legs

Day 9: finish legs, stitch together

Day 10: put all body parts and finishing touches on bear.

So hopefully by Monday it'll be done. Trying to decide if I should jump right into Elizabeth's Lollo bear after that, or get started on my Mother's Day gift for my mom that I'm really excited about.

Here's what I have as of last night:

The body on the left, the stack (which I have all tied together so I don't lose any of the pieces) is all of the hexagons, pentagons, ear patches and the nose on top. The front two hexagons are the ears.

Off to begin crocheting!

Adventures With Lollo Bear

Last week, I found two different pins on pinterest about the same bear. It instantly caught my attention and I fell in love with the look of it. It just looks like a beautiful heirloom bear. I ended up buying my very first pattern - all 200 pages of pictures and descriptions. I must say, it's quite a journey and labor of love!

This is this week's and possibly next week's Pinterest challenge and I'm really enjoying it. I'm going to be making two - one for Katie in soft pink, mossy green and white, and the second bear will be a modified version for Elizabeth. That one will be white, purple and pale blue and will also have big white angel wings (hoping to find white glittery yarn but not sure where to find it) as well as some roses in her praying hands and a hand beaded rosary I'll be making for around her next, comprised of rubies and a big cross. Since this one won't be played with, I'll be going all out to decorate it beautifully. Katie's will have to be a little plainer, as I'm hoping she'll enjoy dragging it about and will need to have no choking hazards on it.

Here's some examples of different Lollo bears:

(Original Lollo)

 

 
 

Since I had quite a few requests to detail how Lollo goes, I'll be writing down my daily Lollo do's:

I've been working on Katie's Lollo for five days now (today is day five). Four days it took me to make the large body. It's a bit larger than the pattern calls for, as I decided to use thicker yarn with larger hooks. The pattern calls for 5-6 hooks, most all in the 1.75 and below sizes. I decided to use 3.75, 3.50, 3.25 and 2.25 with 4 ply WW yarn.

Day 1 started late at night. I used this time to learn how to make african flowers in hexagon and pentagon shapes.

Day 2 I made my first round, the butt part of the bear.

Day 3: I began hating the way the pattern asks to attach the bears. I believe next time I'll do it differently. I saw multiple reviewers say that they didn't follow the pattern here, but I was trying to be as accurate as possible. I now agree with them, it'll be much easier to just sew the shapes together fully made instead of attaching them half done. This day was very frustrating, as the second round had to be done and redone in order to get it right.

 Day 4's Dragon egg shape body and the beginning of day's five hexagons.

Day 4 I finished the body. Rounds 3-5 went quicker than the rest of the body, but the attaching got worse I think. The body is quite large but SO cuddly! I stuffed him well then added the last hexagon to close him up.

Day 5: I've begun working on the head today. So far I did 5 hexagons and now working on the pentagons. 6 pentagons, 5 hexagons, and odd shapes are needed for the head. A bit worried about the size since I'm using modified sized hooks and hoping it comes out accurate, but we'll see. A bit worried I'll have to do it all over again!

Since the body was the biggest part, I'm hoping the rest of Lollo will go quickly now.