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Wafflicious is taking over this week to walk you through a project I just finished. I tried to capture the process a little more in an attempt to document just what goes into building a handmade stuffed toy in crochet.

The pattern I used is one I’ve used before, although I’ve made some tweaks to it to serve my tastes better. This particular toy is going to a 3 year old who just got a new baby sibling. I made a blanket for the new baby, but since I never made a baby blanket for her when she was born I feel like I can’t just start now. So I made her a unicorn.

I start with the head because it’s the most complicated part. In this case especially because a new baby in the house means I need to sew on facial features rather than using plastic safety eyes. It’s hard to see here but there’s some lavender eyelashes around the eyes. I didn’t take a picture of it because it’s mildly creepy, but I actually sewed multiple eyes on this face and then removed the ones I didn’t like.

Next I get the horn in place, which in this case was knit straight onto the piece with double pointed knitting needles (DPNs). It’s close, frustrating work but it’s still easier than trying to do this after the head is finished and stuffed. That orange thing in the picture is a stitch marker that is holding on to the last active stitch on the head so I know if it gets pulled out. Knitting the horn gives it a different character from the rest of the head and even gives it a little bit of a spiral.

Head is now finished. You can see here that I messed up with the face, I put it on so that the transition between purple and blue yarn is visible, usually something I try to hide on the bottom of the head. By the time I realized it I had it upside down I wasn’t going to redo it all. Ears get crocheted separately and sewn on to finish the head.

Body, legs, mane and tail are all made and stuffed before getting sewn together to make a whole unicorn! Yes, the body is smaller than the head. The legs are weighted with quilt scraps at the bottom and poly fill at the top to give them a little bit of heft in the hoof. The head and body are also stuffed with quilt scraps.

It begins.

The assembly is done. But that pile of green and blue behind her is the mane and tail, 6 tail strands and 18 mane strands. They each have to be sewn in individually. I use an offset needle (gold, on the table) to sew everything together. It’s yarn sized and it’s probably my most used tool outside the crochet hook.

Two of each color get sewn in side by side starting at the top of the head and moving down. All of the yarn as I tie it in gets sunken into the body, pulled through the other side as tight as I can get it and then snipped so that the yarn disappears back into the middle of the piece.

I’ve done a lot of these, despite the amount of time it takes and traditionally the last thing I do when I’m done is give her a haircut. Each of the strands has two long ends on it, one to sew in and the other is leftover from starting the chains. Once everything is firmly in place I cut off the rest of the long ends so they’re all even and the unicorn looks natural.

And she’s done! About 8inches nose to tail, weights roughly a pound. It takes about 10 hours end to end give or take me hating the face and redoing it.

And there’s enough yarn leftover to stuff the entire body of another unicorn, which may happen later, I try not to waste anything.

Happy creating, Avocados!