Chibi Totoro Free Crochet Pattern

I am making as many of the studio Ghibli characters as I can. My kids and the cousins are mad on all things Spirited Away, Totoro and so on.  I'm starting off with the Totoro characters as they are pretty simple shapes.  Although I (rather ambitiously) want to be able to fit all the Totoros inside the cat bus... we'll see how that works out.  So here is my pattern for Chibi Totoro

Equipment:

4mm hook
white aran weight yarn (only a small amount, 50g would be ample)
large darning/wool needle
scissors
black thread
pink thread (optional)

This arrangement is my preferred set up for amigurumi. Now, everybody has slightly different tension etc so hook size and yarn weight can and should be altered to what you get the best result with.

This pattern is written assuming you have a basic knowledge of crochet techniques because 1) I'm not a good enough crocheter to explain things that well and 2) this is the first pattern Ive ever written out properly so will probably not be that great. Please feel free to try it out and give me feedback on how terrible it is.  It's the only way I'll learn!

I haven't told you how to end the rounds because it is up to you.   You can either slip stitch into the 1st stitch of the round and chain one or (as I do because then you don't get a seam) use a stitch marker and work in a continuous spiral.

Method body/head

Making a starting ring in your preferred fashion, you can magic loop if you like.  I chained 3, slip stitched into 1st chain to form a circle.  DC 7 into ring.

Round 1, DC 2 into every stitch around (14)
Round 2, (1DC, 2DC in next stitch) repeat to end (21)
Round3, (1DC, 1DC, 2DC in next stitch) repeat around (28)
Round 4, (1DC, 1DC, 1DC, 2DC in next stitch) repeat around (35)
Round 5,6, 7, 8, 9,  1DC in each stitch around (35)
Round 10, (DC5, DC2 together) repeat around until last 6 stitches DC4, DC2 together(29)
Round 11,12, 13,  1DC in each stitch around (29)
Round 14, (DC4, DC2 together) repeat around (25)
Round 15, 16, 1DC in each stitch around (25)
Round 17, (DC4, DC2 together) repeat around (22)
Round 18, 1DC in each stitch around (22)
Round 19, (1DC, 1DC, 1DC, DC2 together) repeat around (17)
Round 20, 1DC in each stitch around (17)

At this point stuff Chibi Totoro quite stiffly.

Round 21, (DC2, DC2 together) repeat around
Round 22, DC2 together all the way around and sew closed.

Ears,  make 2

Ch5, slip stitch in ch1 to form a ring.

Round 1, 2DC in ch1 and ch2, 1dc in each other ch around (9)

Round 2, 3, 4, 1DC in each stitch around (9)

Round 5, DC3, DC2 together DC4 (8)

Round 6, 1DC in each stitch around (8)

Round 7, DC3, DC2 together, DC3 (7)

Round 8, 1DC in each stitch around (7)

Round 9, (DC1, DC2 together) repeat around and sew to close

Tail

Chain 10, slip stitch into ch1 to form a ring.

Round 1 and 2, 1DC in each stitch around (10)
Round 3, (DC3, DC2 together) twice (8)
Round 4 and 5, 1DC in each stitch around
Round 6,( DC1, DC2 together) repeat around and sew to close.

Making up

Assemble your Chibi Totoro using the darning needle to sew the ears in an upright manner on the head. lightly stuff the tail before sewing on.  Use black thread to sew on eye details and pink thread for optional blush marks below eyes.


Patterns for Chuu Totoro, Oh Totoro and Cat Bus are coming soon!

xoxo

P.S. (Do what you will with my pattern, I couldn't really care less.  If you do reproduce it online it would be lovely if you would link back to this dismal little blog here, many thanks!)

Crimblemas times and other festive tidings.

Christmas this year held a mixture of emotions for me.  On one hand it was the first year that Spike had a real sense of the build up to it and got excited, what with being in nursery and taking part in the nativity.  Spike really is so lucky to be in such a fantastic Nursery now.  They really do all that they can to make everyday as special as they can for the children.  I think childhood should be as full of as much magic and wonder as possible and this year he was really tapping into it all.  However, This was also a time of changes for us.  First Christmas not living in Llangybi, first Christmas Spike getting picked up by his Dad to go and stay with him for a few days and also the longest time I've ever been separated from Spike.  He, however has had a whale of a time and THAT is what is important.

Spike met Father Christmas in nursery and also Mrs Christmas came in and made Gingerbread men with them. One day they had to clean up reindeer poo in nursery as Santa's Reindeer had made a terrible mess and also they had a fab end of term Christmas party.  This year I also got to go to Spike's first nativity play.  I was the mum filming the entire thing whilst also singing along to all the songs and doing all the actions.  Spikey was SO GOOD! No melt downs, or freezing and thankfully no planking.  He sang and danced and clapped his way through the entire thing. I was busting with pride.

                                       

This was Spike's costume for the Christmas Nativity. He was one of the 3 Kings/wise men.  Spike however was adamant that he was a Knight. Infact the only was I could get him to agree to wear the costume and attend the Nativity full stop was if he could be a Knight. So I crocheted him a Knight helmet rather than a crown and prayed the teachers wouldn't mind.  No one said anything so I think I got away with it.  I made the costume itself out of a pillow case and some scrap fabric that my Grandmother gave me.

Sam here is helping me write the Christmas cards.  A friend sent me a link of advice for people spending their first Christmas as a single parent.  One of the items that really struck a chord with me was establishing some new traditions.  I suppose it gives you something to focus on and work towards and also a new sense of identity.  I wanted our traditions to incorporate our extended family as much as possible so it was kind of perfect for us that in the week running up to Christmas we had the cousins Tomski and Umska to hang out with us EVERYDAY!

                   

  

Here they all are doing Christmas Crafts! Tomski made a star to go on the top of our tree as we didn't have a topper and people generally seemed a little displeased with me unceremoniously plonking a toy dalek on top.  We did salt dough ornaments, glitter stars, reindeer's and robins.  We sang Christmas songs and had a new Film to watch and goodies to eat on Christmas eve in our new pyjamas.  A Christmas eve box is definitely a little tradition that I will continue.

This year I made the boys a stocking each. They can hold about half a dozen small toys plus some chocolates and an obligatory Clementine in the toe.  Despite sharing a selection box between two of these stockings for the boys I am befuddled to tell you that neither one of them touched any chocolate over Christmas.  If Spud didn't look so much like me and Spike wasn't so weird (like me) I would be seriously wondering whether they had both somehow been switched at birth.  Anyway, back to the stockings.  I love them, they're so traditional looking and I'm thinking that each year I can add  bit to them, like the Boy's names, some snowflakes etc another little tradition to add to our festive season.

We trimmed the tree all together.  We never had a tree in Llangybi as our living room was quite an odd shape which made festive feng shui far more bother then it was worth. Especially considering we spent the actual main part of Christmas over my parents anyway. Last year I did feel a bit glum about no decorations so I crocheted some sparkly snowflakes to hang in the windows and from the beams.

Christmas Morning! Thanks to our wonderfully generous family and friends the boys (as usual) had lots of lovely presents to open. We have been on pretty meagre rations toy wise since leaving Llangybi so it's been nice to be able to reclaim play time some what.  As usual the kids tore into the presents quicker than I could note down which present came from which relative but they've all been a massive hit!

Spud with the train that his lying Aunty Hannah said didn't come apart.... it actually comes apart into approximately 10,000 pieces. Luckily those pieces are then building blocks that can be made into a tower and so forth. *shakes fist at Aunty Hannah*

This was their main present from me. Trains + Dinosaurs = two happy boys.

My beautiful sister with Spud on Christmas morning. We all hung out and exchanged pressies in the morning and nicked bits of bacon off the turkey as it rested in the kitchen.  Then Ruth went home to have dinner with her family and after dinner Mikey went over his Dad's.  It was all different and strange but still very good.

Hope you all had a good Christmas and a Happy New Year!

xoxo

Homework already?!

Spike's nursery send homework assignments home on a Friday for us to do over the weekend. Admittedly at first I was ever-so-slightly horrified. Home work at this age? According to Alfie Kohn who wrote “The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing,” a close look at all the research available contradicts this practice. In an e-mail regarding homework for young children,“No research has ever found any benefit. It’s all pain and no gain.”

I was relieved to discover that at Spike's nursery the assignments are very relaxed and there is plenty of scope to adapt it to his particular learning style. An absolute must for Spikey. The assignments centre around a teddy bear called "Ginger". 

The first week there was a small paragraph to read about Ginger, her family and where she lives. A picture of Ginger to colour in and reference was made to a poem called "teddy bear, teddy bear". A quick Google search soon found it for me. We started with the paragraph, which he enjoyed. We expanded on it talking about Ginger's house, what it looks like; her family and friends and the games they play. Then we did the colouring. This was over in a flash, he just does not care for colouring at all. He did enjoy getting a scissors and chopping the picture to bits. The best bit for Spike was the poem. We were able to get up and put actions to it, I videoed it and he was really proud of the results.

The second week Ginger bear shows us what a good listener looks like and we have to talk about this and show that we can be good listeners too by sitting still, looking, being quiet and of course listening. The poem wasn't as good this week. It was hard to put actions to it and Spike kept going off on tangents and reciting the one we learned last week. The poem was about what a teddy bear is for (cuddles, tickles etc) so I went and got his big blue teddy bear and acted out the hugging and other actions on it. This sustained his interest for about one and a half recitations until he took the teddy off me and started acting out last weeks much preferred poem instead. Well you can't win them all. 

As long as I am able to introduce the activities in a gentle play based way I have no objections to Spike's "homework" assignments. If we had physical sit down pen/pencil in hand stuff at this point it would be way too much. So far I think his school definitely seem to have the right approach.