Over the past few months I've been crocheting moomins. I've made three, and every time I make them I forget how much time and effort they take and I want to cry before I've even gotten round to assembling them. However once they are finished I think they look quite impressive and are probably the most rewarding figures I've crocheted so far.
After trawling the web, I found this pattern from Crochet Amigurumi Blogg. Unfortunately it's in Swedish so it took me a while to get the hang of the pattern and it took me forever to work out the pattern, but I worked out in the end that "tills" is the same as a stitch decrease (sc2tog) and as long as you make sure the number of stitches add up at the end of each row you should be dandy. If you plan to make a moomin I'd strongly suggest using a stitch marker and moving it as you crochet each row, as especially in the head, every row seems to be different and it's easy to lose track of where you are up to! As a result, the first moomin I made had more of a bulbous bulge than the cute moomin snout, and as much as people compliment me on it, I'll always look at it with a bit of disdain...
Although I occasionally post photos of the moomins in progress and after they are finished, I thought it would be quite nice to put them all in one place and explain a bit about the making of them, which hopefully will also be useful if anyone fancies having a go at crocheting one.
The first thing to start with is the head. The number of stitches, and most importantly where you decrease stitches, gives the head the moomin shape. This is why it's important to use a stitch marker, because if you miss out stitches then you might end up decreasing in the wrong position and your head won't be the right shape! Here the head is ready to stuff.
Next, to the start the body.
Here is the base of body (the black thread acting as a stitch marker).
Unlike with most amigurumi/stuffed toys I've made in crochet, you start at the bottom of the body and crochet upwards.
Here I am continuing to crochet the body from the bottom upwards, to create a basket shape.
Eventually you will decrease the amount of stitches per row so the body gets a conical shape and will taper up to form the upper body and neck.
Once the body and head are finished, stuffed full of fiber filling and fastened off, the head is sewn to the body.
The ears and made and sewn on, and the limbs and tail are then made, stuffed, and sewn on.
Moomin II, made for my best friend Rach
Then it comes to the details!
Yellow yarn can be sewn into the top of the head, and if you separate the individual yarn strands you get a lovely blonde fringe (great if you want to make a Snorkmaiden moomin!).
The eyes can be embroidered on, and here I used black and brown embroidery thread. I originally tried to make the eyes out of felt but I didn't feel there was enough of a contrast between white or cream felt (for the pupils of the eye) against the white wool of the moomin. Safety eyes could also be used, but I don't feel they would make it look much like a moomin!
Moomin II posing on our radiator.
I was then asked to custom make a moomin for a fellow Twitter-er. I used a design similar to Moomin II which can be seen above. I call this one Moomin III (even though I based the last two on the character Snorkmaiden so they really should be Snorkmaiden I & II...OH WELL).
The back of Moomin III.
I based the details of Moomin III on this photo and I'm very happy with the result!
Ta-daaa!
For this moomin I changed the position of the arms and stitched them into the body so that they appeared to be more closed. I was then able to create some tiny flowers using this easy pattern by Jodie Kundhi and stitch them together and to the front of the arms, to give the appearance that the moomin is offering flowers. I stitched a bit of the same coloured yarn as the hair to make the flowers look a bit more exciting.
I also changed the embroidery of the eyes to appear closed, as I felt it made the moomin look cuter than embroidering on wide open eyes.
So there we have it. Woolly crochet moomins!
I am happy to custom make moomins, however they do take quite a bit of time and effort, and as I'm starting back at uni on the 24th September I need to start balancing crochet with uni stuff (sad face).
However if you'd like me to make you a moomin, please DM me on Twitter (@shutupcaf)
:)
