Frog / Zebra Amis (or, Toys My Children Won’t Appreciate)

Not sure if you can hear it from your side of the computer screen, but if you picked up on a long, glorious, beautiful sigh of deep relief just now, that was courtesy of yours truly being so glad it’s Friday, and so glad the week is over, and so so so glad my week of marathon sponsored posts has come to an ignominious end (I cannot tell you how glad I am to once again be hitting the ‘publish’ button without cringing in embarrassment). It was such a forceful sigh of relief, I wouldn’t be surprised if your hair actually blew back from your screen a little, hair commercial style. Thanks for hanging in there with me this week. It was awkward and embarrassing to put up one sponsored post after another, but no one left me any nasty comments about it, and for that I thank you.

I am a bit of a stress crocheter, and I have definitely been feeling the stress this past week or two, so I got a good amount of crocheting done (for shop orders and also just for kicks). I found a darling little amigurumi pattern that I can’t wait to make Darcy for her first birthday, which meant that I had to crochet something for Forrest for his birthday, too, and he seems to be into zebras lately, so there you have it. A stress-induced birthday zebra.

Honestly, I’ll be completely shocked if he plays with it more than maybe 4 or 5 times. He’s never really been into stuffed animals, but he’s going to be 4 in 2 days. At 4 years old, I might have a prayer of him enjoying something I’ve crocheted. Will I even have the slightest chance of him loving a crocheted animal at 5 or beyond? Probably not. So I’ll just keep crocheting him things he (probably) won’t care about while I still have even the slimmest chance that he’ll like them.

I used this free pattern from Kristen’s Crochet to make the little guy, and it worked up very nicely. For some reason, the limbs (which looked perfectly proportioned on Kristen’s version!) looked goofily large on my zebra, so I went back and scaled them down a bit, plus shortened the mane significantly and went with a braided tail. I think he came out awfully cute. I’m really excited to give him to my little Goob-Meister, and am also preparing myself for the impending heartbreak when he shows zero interest in it whatsoever. Yay parenting!!!

After finishing the zebra, it would have made sense to start working on the toy I have planned for Darcy’s 1st birthday (only 2 months away?!?!?!?!?!), and yet I started a completely unrelated project instead. Because when do I ever do things that make sense? I made a frog, which I hope to not keep much longer (you can find her in my etsy shop, and would you do me a solid and go buy her? thanksverymuch). For unexplainable reasons, I stayed up until 1 AM finishing the little darling, and paid for it dearly the next day when Forrest delivered a friendly wake-up call bright and early by knocking on my forehead to tell me he needed toast. (Once again: yay parenting!!!)

I don’t feel like the pictures quite do this frog justice—she is so darling, so plump and squeezable, so dang cute in real life. I just love how she came out, and would love to make more of her in the future. 

I based her on this pattern from lilleliis (and am now obsessed with all of her patterns—girlfriend has talent, no doubt about it). Fantastic pattern, if you’re in the market for a crocheted frog (and why wouldn’t you be?).

I am tempted to stress-begin another amigurumi as soon as I finish typing this, but I’m not sure I can survive another 1AM bedtime. Happy weekend to one and all!