Evolution of a hippo

You saw the first draft of the snouty hippo some 17 months ago (Hi, FYDP), and it saw a few versions in between. I thought I’d show you them.

Previous drafts to the Snouty Hippo. See the evolution and get the final pattern at revedreams.com/.

Top to bottom, let me introduce the versions.

Draft 1 (red/orange/gray variegated): freehanded, intended to be a thumbnail hippo!

Draft 2 (purple variegated): snout adjusted, head shortened and body increases moved to chest instead of evenly spaced. Granted, this yarn’s a little thicker, but look how my stitching got larger over the months!

Draft 3 (orange): head shortened again, diameter of body decreased.

Draft 4 (red variegated): one more little head adjustment, time to make the body not a tin can, feet needed shrinking down.

Draft 5 (screaming yellow meemie): yet one more head adjustment, minor body adjustment, learning how to sew the legs on in appropriate locations. Very similar to the final version – I just made another edit to the body.

Here’s a better pair of photos to see the changing shapes.

Previous drafts to the Snouty Hippo. See the evolution and get the final pattern at revedreams.com/. Previous drafts to the Snouty Hippo. See the evolution and get the final pattern at revedreams.com/.

Rumor has it there are amigurumi designers who sketch their creatures, stitch them up, make a second copy for in-progress photos, type the pattern and send it off for testing. I am not such a designer. Most of my patterns work like this one, with quite a bit of distance between the initial draft and the final version. Worth the effort? You tell me!

FYDP Roundup 6

It would appear 2 is my steady state for FYDP, which I’ll take. Actually, it counts as a resounding success this week because I’ve been sick for over half of it. I do have some FYDP projects in the works that won’t be posted for a while, as well.

  1. Finally posted about swing tacks.
  2. I was going to stencil a shirt for a friend, but between being totally intimidated by the idea and not being sure it would end up something she wanted to wear even if it turned out well, I went with a different idea and put away those supplies.

Totals:

  1. Mending: 2
  2. Non-mend sewing: 3
  3. Elimination: 9
  4. Website updates: 4