Fish Boxtroll & Boxtrolls Keychain

I have this girlfriend who has been throwing birthday parties for her girl with different themes every year for the past 8 years.  They are not simple themed parties with themed cakes and deco, it is complete with games and entertainment for every one.  It is actually one of the most look forward event for us every year and this year it is extra exciting because she approached me to be party of the party~  

In 2014, the 3D stop-motion movie Boxtrolls, a story based on the novel Here Be Monsters! by Alan Snow hit the screen.  Both of us, together with our kids, fell in love with these night creatures.  Thus, the birthday theme for this year is Boxtrolls!

I searched the web and came upon Little Black Marker and her Fish Boxtroll, she did an amazing job in creating Fish Boxtroll, however she uses other materials such as felt and cardboard to make up Fish's eyes and box, which I wasn't keen on coz I would like to keep it to yarn and crochet.

At that moment, I have no idea how I can replicate that, I took out the yarn, stared at it for seconds with ideas/methods racing through my mind and I started to visualize how I want the eye patch, eyes and box to look like.  Once I have that image, I held on to it and sets my hands working.  It turned out not too bad eh?  

The biggest satisfaction I had was the fish applique, I did not follow any pattern nor wrote it down before hand, I just did a mental pattern and made it, there were a couple minor mistakes where I have to frog it to redo again, 15mins later, the fish applique is done.  

I was contemplating whether to make the box in one piece or in 6 separate pieces, after thinking it through I decided on the latter.  I sew the pieces together with the same colored yarn with simple whip stitch, this creates a "fold" which makes it looks more like a box.  I didn't want Fish to have removeable box so I did not make his body, instead I made the head, arms and feet then sew them onto the box.

I used 4mm hook on acrylic 8 ply yarn, it turned out to be about 30cm from head to toe, a good size for the birthday girl to hug it to sleep.

My girlfriend wanted the little guests to have their own Boxtrolls too and so they each will have a Boxtroll keychains with their initials on it.  It took me quite some time to start doing these fellas because I couldn't find the RIGHT yarn, it's either of the wrong color tone or unsuitable yarn thickness till I chanced upon the jade colored cotton yarn from Daiso.  I was so happy that I almost jumped up with joy on the spot!  It almost match the color tone of Fish Boxtroll too! 

This Boxtroll keychain is my pattern, again mental pattern only; yes I have a habit of doing that which probably is not a good practice, I should try to pen it down some time soon, but they are simple basic stitches that not too complicated. As with Fish Boxtroll above, the box are 6 separate pieces sewn together for that "boxy" effect.  

Initially I wanted to make just "stick" arms and legs but it didn't feel right to me; injustices to these little fellas too, so I made fingers and thumb for them - don't they look cute?

Overall the whole thing turned out much better than I expected, from the feedback from my girlfriends and the mummy friends they love them too! 

I am very proud of myself with these Boxtrolls because this is my 2nd mental pattern (1st is a Batman keychain), it just makes my heart flutter with excitement knowing that there are 23 of them out there, showing off my creations to the rest of the world.

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The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Couple of months ago, I received an order from a music teacher for a caterpillar in Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar book. I was very happy to receive such request because I am such an Eric Carle fan and his caterpillar is so adorable~ As I searched for the caterpillar pattern, I found out that there were so many The Very Hungry Caterpillar fans out there.  I finally settled for Britteny's Boutique's Hungry Caterpillar but made a little bit changes.  You can see her free pattern over here.

Britteny's caterpillar pattern is very simple, just a few balls for the body and head, the difficult part for me is to sew the body together and making them curve up correctly like Eric Carle's illustration.  It's challenging and the crafter perfectionist in me made me sew them a million more stitches so that the body stays in that way.  My poor fingers and thumbs were screaming "MURDER" because it's quite difficult to stick the needle in between 2 balls and try to pull the needle out from the other side.

Britteny uses felt for its eyes but I wanted to keep every thing crochet thus I crochet them instead.  Its just a simple sc around with increase sc to make them sort of longish shape.

I went to study Eric Carle's illustration of the caterpillar and decided to use 3 different shades of green yarns instead for its body.  I added more "hair" because me think it's a hairy caterpillar.

So far I have made 3 of this, each in different size and I never get too tired or bored making this.  The weaving in of the "hair" onto the body was a little therapeutic for me and I could do it while watching the tv.  I also find that by making the caterpillar with 2 strands of acrylic yarn gives it a sturdier and firm body, so it does not sort of droop down when you hold it at the tail end especially coz the head is slightly bigger and heavier.  Of course with the added strand means I just pushed the notch for sewing them together up 2 levels (can you hear my fingers and thumbs protesting???)

So what do you think of my caterpillar?  From the music teacher's feedback, the kids love the caterpillar and every one grabs for it when they are in class.  Aye!  Fighting over the caterpillar!  I think I better make another one so that there won't be any "wars" in class lol.

If you want to try making this caterpillar, the free pdf pattern by Britteny is above in this post.  If you rather I make this for you, simply drop me an email to place an order.