ぽちゃぽちゃのチキ (Pocha Pocha no Chiki)

I still have some polyester yarn and one of my living room throw pillow covers is finally falling apart.  So, that meant that I now have to "recover" it with something else.  Since I am fully enamored with my Emotional Support Chickens, I decided that I would use up the rest of my Mystery Fuchsia yarn (as well as repurpose the yarn from my Modern Art Sweater) to make a mid-sized chiki for the living room.  And here's how it went:

First of all, I had to take apart my Modern Art Sweater. I spent an hour (maybe more!) trying to find the woven ends of the sleeves and the bottom but to no avail, I couldn't find it (apparently, my super power is to weave ends in so well that I will never be able to find it again😳😱🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️).  I was finally forced to cut somewhere along the edges so I could unravel my sweater to reuse the yarn! 😔😤😠😖😳😱😭🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️🙇‍♀️ What has taken me a month to make was taken apart in a matter of an hour or so:

Then, using my Chiaogoo 6.5mm (10.5 US) needles and Mystery Fushia yarn (held doubled), here's how my new ぽちゃぽちゃのチキ (Pocha Pocha no Chiki) went:

On Day 1, I started the first wing using my 6.5mm needles and then measured it against my 快適 千喜 (Kaiteki Chiki) and 分厚い チキ(Buatsui Chiki). It was slightly larger then my 快適 千喜 (Kaiteki Chiki) and much smaller then my 分厚い チキ(Buatsui Chiki) but, the fabric felt really dense.😔😳🙇‍♀️ So, I decided to try the other wing using my Chiagoo 8mm (US11) needles and found that it was a softer fabric and only slightly larger. 

This is what it looks like using the 6.5mm needles

This is what it looks like using the 8.0mm needles

This is the size difference with the 6.5mm "wings" on top

So, I decided to redo my original wing with the larger 8.0mm needle size. To join the "wings", I didn't bind off each wing; instead, I used an improvised 3-needle bind of so there wasn't much of an "edge":

On Day 2, I finished the rest of the body (less the beak and comb):

On Day 3, I finished the beak and comb as well as started seaming parts of it:

All that was left to do was tp put in the eyes as well as to finish seaming and stuffing it (I found that I need to put in the eyes first before stuffing then seaming it up); at first, I had tried to embroider the eyes but it came our hideously. Then, I decided that I would just put in button eyes but none of my buttons seemed to match or was "right" as eyes.😔🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️ So, I asked my MIL to see if she'd let me raid her button stash and lo and behold!🎉🥳🙌, she had the perfect button eyes for it. After sewing the eyes on, stuffing it was another hurdle. As a reminder, the initial intent was to essentially replace a throw pillow that we were using in the living room. But once I put in the old pillow, I realized that it wasn't going to fill up the chicken enough.😔😱🙇‍♀️🤦‍♀️ So, I repurposed my 黄色肩巾 (Ki Iro Hire) 黄色いカーディガン (Ki Iro Kadigan), Taiyo no Hikari Seetaa (太陽の光 セーター - Sunshine Sweater) & the inserts for my Watashi no Neko Uwabaki ( 私 の 猫 上履き) for additional stuffing; additionally, remember my Giri no Haha no Tabi (義理 の 母 の 足袋) (aka Tabi Monogatari for Giri no Haha no Tabi's the original, v30, 34-38)? I also repurposed all of those socks as stuffing as well.😁🥰🙌 And despite using all of that plus all of the leftover Mystery Fuchsia yarn, I still needed to add some poly fill to it to smooth it out and to fill put the tail "wings". Here's how it turned out:

And here's how it looks like next to its sibling chikis:

I know, I know .. ぽちゃぽちゃのチキ (Pocha Pocha no Chiki) seems bigger than 分厚い チキ(Buatsui Chiki) but 分厚い チキ(Buatsui Chiki) has been extensively used as my reading pillow and its stuffing had settled down so it's not as fluffy as it was when I  had originally stuffed it.😔🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️ I know that given some time, ぽちゃぽちゃのチキ (Pocha Pocha no Chiki) will also settle down and shrink a bit from the smushing it'll receive.😉🤭😊🥰