Introducing a New Friend

Without further ado, meet my new friend:

Isn’t he cute?!  I just love his happy face.  My son loves him too and calls him “Eggy”.  Unfortunately, my octopus is without appendages and may remain so for a while.  I’d like to start the monster body first before working on any appendages (maybe it was a bad idea to be working on two toys at the same time because unlike my little green friend, I only have two arms . . . actually, my green friend has no arms, but he will eventually have eight of them).

I’m so happy this pattern worked the body in the round because there was no seaming (have I mentioned that I dislike seaming?).  And I do like that the pattern asked me to stuff BEFORE finishing the decreases; it would have been very awkward to stuff it with only a small opening.  After stuffing, I waited a day before finishing.  Sometimes the stuffing settles and more is needed to give the toy a full appearance (although the way my son is squeezing  the thing, poor “Eggy” might be squashed before he gets all his legs attached!).

I also embroidered the face details before finishing the head.  I used black sock yarn from my stash.  My hand-sewing skills are very, very poor–nevermind embroidery.  I wanted to be able to secure the ends inside the octopus head (nobody wants an eye or smile to unravel, least of all my son).

Here’s hoping I’ve got a monster to share with you next week.

DinaPurls