Life of the Lintee Bean

I crochet a LOT. I crochet on the train to and from work, in the evenings, and on the weekends. I’ve gotten pretty good at making garments, accessories, and blankets. What I cannot do is crochet little softie toys.

I have friends that ONLY crochet little softies (or amigurimi). They express their fear of making clothing that wouldn’t fit. Meanwhile, I admire their little toys and lifelike replicas of everything from potted plants to action figures.

Occasionally, I forget that I’m incapable of making toys, and volunteer to make one. For some reason, that’s happened a lot lately.

First, a fellow “yarn swapper” on Ravelry.com asked for a toy penguin. I jumped on it. Sure! She’s super nice, I’ll make her a penguin! My penguin was made of failure. It was a black blob with a white patch on  front and an odd orange protrusion near the top (that was supposed to be a beak).

Penguin... kind of

Another woman on Ravelry.com was looking for testers for her toy alpaca pattern. Oh my gosh! That alpaca was so cute! Two problems:
1) I cannot make toys.
2) I cannot knit. This was a KNIT pattern. I cannot knit AT ALL.

This didn’t stop me. I thought I’d jab yarn with knitting needles and an alpaca would come out. (It didn’t.) I tried to convert the pattern from knit into Tunisian crochet. I know Tunisian crochet. Well, I’ve done Tunisian crochet – ONCE. No alpaca. I tried to use standard crochet to make an alpaca, using her pattern as a guideline. I made a few amorphous blobs and something that resembled a duck’s head. The designer, on seeing my photos, allowed me to ungracefully bow out of the test.  (Grade “F”.)

Not an alpaca

My friend (and roommate) is a huge Star Wars buff. She asked me to crochet her a Yoda, and I made a green blob that vaguely resembled Yoda. For her birthday, I thought I’d make Princess Leia. Maybe it was Princess Leia after falling into that garbage compressor. I know Princess Leia isn’t a Jedi and doesn’t have a light saber, but I gave her one as a “clue” on what she might be.  Maybe Luke Skywalker dropped his saber and she retrieved it for him.

Yoda, perhaps he is

A rather disheveled Princess Leia

Another “yarn swapper” on Ravelry.com collects anything “sheepie”. I crocheted a little sheep-shaped sachet for her swap package. She expressed thanks for her package, including “the cat toy”. Cat toy? What cat toy? I explained it was a sachet, not a cat toy. She said she’d assumed it was a cat toy, since it was a mouse. It’s not a mouse, it’s a sheep. Well, it was supposed to be a sheep.

Supposed to be a sheep...

I’ve collected a few books on crocheting toys. I look at the patterns and optimistically hope someday I’ll figure out this three dimensional crochet. In the meantime, I’ll focus on blankets, accessories, and garments… or maybe garments for toys.

Submitted for publication in the Greeley Citizen