Mouche & Friends

So I had purchased Cinthia Vallet's Mouche & Friends back in January and finally felt ready to tackle learning how to make top-down softies (and not necessarily the typical softies like bunnies and bears).  I was really looking forward to making these softies to finally use up nearly the rest of my polyester yarn as I was planning on using it for the animals itself and their clothes.

I started with one of the Ducklings as I knew that I would have enough light yellow yarn for that (and possibly then some).  I found that once I got going, it was actually a very addictive knit and I finished knitting it in a day (if I had started earlier and didn't take any breaks, I probably could've completely finished it (stuffed and a little light seaming) in a day.

I was so excited how quickly it went that I started on the Duck the next day (and yes, I did finish weaving in all the ends and stuffed the Duckling the next day as well).  The Duck was a lot bigger and took me much longer than I expected, particularly since I already knew how it was going to be made.  I only finished the head, neck and wings the first day.  It didn't help that I was using black yarn (it was so hard to see & count my stitches!😳😱).  Additionally, I finally used up one of my (seemingly) smaller (never ending) ball of black yarn; I was actually quite shocked (I thought the original ball of black yarn I had would be more than enough for the entire Duck) and as I didn't even hit the body yet, I'm wondering how much yarn I'll really need to make the "adult" animals ... I may really need to re-think about which animal I'll be making next as I might not have as much yarn as I initially thought I would have to make most of the animals! 😳😱 As I progress with the body of the Duck, I think it'll help me figure out exactly how many animals I'll be able to make as I was planning on making a majority of them in black (as it's the colour that I have the most in).

I finally finished the Duck the following day.  It came out ... H-U-G-E!😳 And, while the pattern was similar to the Duckling, there were subtle differences which makes the Duck different than its smaller counterpart.

Next up was the Donkey which I started a few days later.  I didn't have a full day off so, I was only able to finish the head on my first day.  The next day, I finished the ears, neck & shoulders.  The following day, I finished the arms and body. Then, I finished the bottom and the legs; finally, on the last day, I finished the tail and stuffed it.  Interestingly enough, making the Donkey was like making parts of a sweater and socks; it used a lot of those skills to shape it and I was very grateful that I had a lot of practice making socks and sweaters so, I wasn't so lost making this one.  And I'm sure you're wondering: So, how big did this one turn out? Well, if I thought the Duck was huge, the Donkey is even bigger! I also discovered that my mystery black yarn were actually two (2!😳😱) different colours of black! 😳😳😳😱😱😱 Fortunately for me, when I had to switch to the new (different colour of) black yarn, it was at the "waist" area so, the Donkey looks like it's wearing pants. 🤦‍♀️ At least it looks ok.🤷‍♀️

Next, I decided to try the Sheep. Since I had met up with a friend over the weekend as well as having to prep for an interview the following week, I didn't have too much time to start on the Sheep and only finished the nose, head and ears on Day 1.  On Day 2, I managed to finish the neck, shoulders and arms.  On Day 3, I finished the body. On Day 4, I finished the bottom and the left leg.  On Day 5, finished the right leg; then I had to figure out how I wanted to make the "hair part" ...  after watching a few YouTube videos, I settled on trying this method and finally finished the Sheep. I used my 4.0mm Tulip crochet hook to make the "hair" and a very stiff brush to make it fuzzy.

As I was making another animal, I finally discovered someone's note that there was an errata for this book (it was damn hard to find on the publisher's site!) and I found that there was an error for the Sheep pattern.  However, I think I just ignored the error and just continued on as that didn't seem to make a difference in the making of the animal.

Since I barely used any of the black yarn on the Sheep, the next animal I wanted to try is the Raccoon. On Day 1, I finished the head, ears, neck/shoulders & arms.  On Day 2, I finished the body, legs and tail. It came out much smaller than I anticipated (it's smaller than the sheep but not quite as small as the Duckling - close but not quite)!😳 While the head was a little fiddly and wonky (the instructions for it was definitely not like all the other animals😳😱🤦‍♀️), it was nevertheless a quick knit.

Now that I've completed four (4) animals using my black yarb, I thought I would have enough left for 2 more animals, maybe. So, I decided to make the Wolf next. On Day 1, I finished the head, ears, neck/shoulders & arms.  On Day 2, I finished the body and some of the bottom.  On Day 3, I finished the bottom, tail, started the left leg. On Day 4, finished the legs and stuffed it.  I must say this animal is nearly as large (but not as large) at the Donkey.  It was an interesting and easy knit but I think its snout is longer than it should be; if I were to make this again, I'd definitely reduce the number of rows I did for its snout.

Amazingly, I still had quite a bit of the black left so, I decided to use that to make the Cat next. On Day 1, I finished the head and shoulders. On Day 2, I finished the rest of the Cat.  For the arms, I switched colours on Row 26; for the legs, I switched colours on Row 30 & for the tail, I started switching colours on Row 27.  I was a bit worried that I wouldn't have enough of the black for the Cat so, I decided to make it a tordie cat (plus, I found with the Wolf that an all black animal was hard to distinguish). Amazingly, I still have some black yarn left!😳😱🤦‍♀️  As for making the Cat itself, like the other animals, the pattern was easy to follow and a really quick knit. What I can't quite get over is that it's not nearly as large as I thought it would be. It's actually quite small comparatively. 🤷

Since I (also) still have quite a bit of cream yarn, the next animal up was the Bison. On Day 1, I finished it's nose, face and got lost in it's "hair".  The instructions for that part just didn't seem to make sense to me as it seemed like it was only for half the head and I couldn't figure out how (or when) the other half would be completed.😳🤦‍♀️🤷 Oddly, for that portion of the pattern, it wasn't as clearly written (with number of stitches to give you 'markers") like the other patterns.😳🤦‍♀️🤷 After trying a couple of rows (repeatedly), I finally figured it out and was able to complete nearly half of the hair on Day 1.  On Day 2, I wrapped up the rest of its head, ears and one of the horns. This animal is turning out a lot harder than many of the other animals.  I had to rip out the horn four (4) times to get it right - first, my yarn wasn't the right weight, then I did it backwards before I was able to finally figure it out!😳🤦‍♀️🤷 On Day 3, I finished off the other horn and was able to completed the neck/shoulders portion.  I also had difficulty here as well; somehow I had lost count and had to rip it back to my starting point to make sure I was increasing correctly. 😳🤦‍♀️🤷  On Day 4, I was able to finish its arms.  On Day 5, I was able to finish half of its body. On Day 6, I finished the rest of the body and its bottom.  On Day 7, I finished its legs and tail. I really struggled with this pattern for some odd reason but was glad that I made the decisions I made colour-wise as well as redoing all the parts that I did.  Overall, it also came out very large but really cute! 😍🥰💕 Which in turn makes me very happy that I persevered! 😉🥰💕 (And, if you must know, it's slightly bigger than the Donkey - its gigantic!)

As I went into austere measures with the Bison (to ensure that I had enough yarn for it), I still had enough yarn for one more creature so, I decided that I would try the Squirrel out next. On Day 1, I finished the head and shoulders. On Day 2, I finished its ears, arms and the body. On Day 3, I finished its bottom, legs and half of the tail. On Day 4, I finally finished the tail.

As I was going through the final culling of my stash, I found that I had a full skein of Caron Simply Soft black yarn; so, I decided that it would be enough to make one (1) more animal: the Pig. On Day 1, I finished the head and shoulders. On Day 2, the ears, arms, body, bottom and tail. On Day 3, the legs.

While I started and finished all of the animals back in March, after months of working endlessly and having some major burnout (eight (8) months of it to be exact!😳😱😭), I finally had enough energy (& was essentially forced to be motivated enough) to finish their faces as most of these are meant to be holiday gifts and as such, they needed to be send off soon to make it in time for Christmas.🤭🎄 And, because I was running out of time, I didn't make any of the clothes. Here's whom they would all be going to:

The Donkey, Bison, Wolf and Cat would be gifted to Henry, Emmett, Ashtyn and Maya;

The Sheep would be gifted to Murphy, Kelli's new little one;
The Racoon would be gifted to Naomi, Alayna's new niece;

The Duck, Duckling and Squirrel would be gifted to Yi Ying; and

The Pig would be gifted to my friend, Yohko as part of her Christmas gift.

I hope everyone enjoys their new stuffed animals!🤞🥰

We're ready for the holidays!!🥳❄️🎉⛄🎊🎄