Bear crochet

Time for some crochet I think! Have taken loads of scenic ''walks'' piccies lately but a nice quickie on crochet efforts is needed here I believe. Above is a GREAT book I treated myself to when I found that Miss Y had fallen for the current ''BUILD- a BEAR'' craze and she suddenly wanted to spend humungous amounts on clothes and shoes, not for herself, but for her BUNNY!

Crochet for BEARS to WEAR was promptly ordered from Amazon and I thought she might make a bikini or simple T herself, but she wasn't in the mood so I kinda got involved...

Aran THAT's what I fancied doing so I got stuck in with cables and post stitches galore. Bliss.

Also made a carrot cake : mmmm to keep going don't you know.

Then Miss E decided she ''needed'' a build-a bear too so choccie cub came to visit and stayed as a bedtime cuddles, he does have supersoft fur and a GREAT SMILE!

I made a gauge sample as per the book and my gauge came out a bit different, my yarn was a bit thicker- an English DK - so I modified the body pattern a bit by removing 2 of the basketweave panels: I did 3 instead of 5 .

My first attempt was made in just one very long evening, I was ''hooked!!!!''

I didn't have enough wool so I scraped together 3 batches of creamy leftovers and had a go with a 4mm hook to try out the pattern. Don't look too closely, the colour varies from white to cream to yellowy cream....

This one above is the result. the sleeves look huge but this is needed for the chubby arms the bunny/bears have. I then went I found a terrific yarn: HERITAGE classic DK wool by JAROL.

A lovely deep cream and really very soft: 55% wool! The 100 g ball has 245m on it and I used about 80g of it, this time with a 4.5mm hook as this yarn felt thicker.

I made the body front,back and sides in an evening and both sleeves the next day watching a film. Haven't had time to sew it together yet as it's to be a secret birthday present and Miss Y has been up late a few nights or waking with her usual nightmares.
Below is the sleeve, not sewn into the bodice yet.

I can highly recommend this as a fun, stimulating, quick and satisfying project!!! Not sure if the pattern has an errata though or if I read it wrong - there were a few errors-for my try-out but for the real thing I had re-written it and it came out just perfick as ''PA'' from the'' darling buds of May ''would have said.

BEWARE though: the book is written in AMERICAN crochet terms so each sc is a dc and each dc is really a treble... FPDC is then a FPTr.

In the UK : you could use a DK yarn and a 4mm or 4.5 mm hook and you'll need 60-80 g I reckon. It's stretchy so fits lots of similar type bears.

When she's had her birthday- or if I can sneak it when she's at school- I'll show you the finishes pics modelled on bunny (and/ or bear)
Ta dah , AGAIN, yipee yes siree I am very very happy with how this turned out.