Thursday, June 30, 2016

A Doggie Woobie for Buddy Once


Buddy Ocho (aka Baby G) is having a little brother!  Well, Buddy Once (aka Baby G2) will have been born by the time this post has been published but I started this present for him before he entered the outside world.  



The Woobie Bear visits the toy hospital (aka me!)
Buddy Ocho came to visit last December, and her woobie bear has received a lot of love.  Buddy Ocho sleeps with her bear every day!  So much love that it needs a little bit of TLC in the toy hospital to return to its former glory.


A little bit of non toxic glue and the nose was put back together.  Hopefully it will remain secure for a bit!  I'm sure that the loose ends around the edge will poke out again, but there is nothing that can really be done about that.  I'm happy to give the bear a touch up as needed in the future!


Buddy Once's Woobie Puppy


I wanted the woobie puppy to have the inverse color set as the woobie bear, but unfortunately both of the major colors were discontinued! I selected the closest colors in Shine Sport that I could.  I only had 16.5 g of cream in my stash but I know from the woobie bear that only 11 g of the contrasting teal were used for the stripe and ears, so that should be plenty for this project.


I used KnitPicks Shine Sport in Hazelnut (brown - 74 g, 164 yards), Reef (teal - 91 g, 200 yards) and Cream (unmeasured) on size 3 (3.25 mm) knitting needles.  The Puppy Woobie pattern is part of the Woobie Pattern Collection - Series 1.  By the time all of my close friends have finished having children I expect I'll have knit everything from series 1 AND series 2!  


Notes through construction of the woobie puppy
  • I have a habit of making my long tail not long enough for these woobies.  I set aside 3 arm spans of yarn for the long tail.  We'll see if this is enough!
    There was enough! I should make sure to have maybe 3.5 arm spans next time just to be safe. 
  • Round 1 starts the increases (since I did a long tail cast on and NOT a provisional cast on.)  
  • For decrease rounds, I will sl the first stitch, then follow odd round instructions. This first stitch would become part of the last CDD.
  • I hit 148 stitches with exactly 37 stitches between each marker.  Wahoo!  I haven't had issues with my stitch count in the last few woobies I knit.  Once I hit 140 sts, I started the additional deceases as follows: S1, K 15, CDD, K14, CDD around.
  • When I was closing up the neck of the woobie, I decided to try to skip a step.  Rather than transferring the stitches to on needle and then back to two needles I decided to go directly to two needles.  I ended up dropping the last few stitches, resulting in a jumbled mess.  Thankfully I was able to fix it up and then get back on track to finish up the head.
  • I normally like to start with the ears and other embellishments so that when I weave in the loose ends on the blanket body I can complete the finishing right away.  Well, I didn't have that foresight this time so when I finished the puppy head I still had to knit up the ears and spots.
  • Ahhhh!   I misread the instructions for the first ear and started too far to the top.  Time to rip this out and start over.
  • Take 2 - The embellishments are done!  I really wish that I had finished these earlier in the project.  My bad! 
This was my big Spring knitting project.   During the course of knitting Rowdy started to grow up.  I can no longer knit with him on my lap since he wants to join in with the fun!  


When I was working on the Doggie woobie the yarn arrived for another baby who arrived this spring.  In the KnitPicks box was a little card.  I thought nothing of it until Lucky ran over and held up the card and said, "This is a picture of mommy!"  Apparently any headless crocheter is me!  


Time to sew everything together!  


I struggled a bit with where to place the ears.  I'm still not sure if they needed to go higher or lower on the head.  


Is this a puppy or a bunny? The ear placement makes a huge difference and I think I ended up in an ambiguous place. The bunny woobie (which I haven't made yet) doesn't have super floppy ears and the ears are much more on the top of the head.  Next to that bunny, this is clearly a puppy.  However on its own...  What do you think?  



When I showed Keith and Lucky the woobie without the face, they both thought it was a rabbit!  Whoops!  Once the face was on and the ears were styled, it looks more like a puppy.... maybe?  Well, a puppy or a spotted, floppy eared bunny.  Either way, I know that Buddy Once will love it!  


I put a little bit of non-toxic glue over the embroidery to hold it in place.  Maybe this won't unravel as fast as the snuggle bear.  


When I went out to San Francisco to deliver the woobie, I almost brought Lucky's and Rowdy's along so they could all snuggle in person.  I finally realized that travelling cross country with two kids requires enough gear and let the unicorn and zebra at home.  They did get a lot of snuggles in before I packed up, though.  


This isn't going to be the last woobie I need to make this year.  So many babies!