Make Way for Ducklings Mack

With the completion of Mack we have officially reached the half way point in making ducklings for my Make Way for Ducklings project.

Mack is slightly larger than his siblings and that could have to do with starting with an e hook instead of a D. I had already inserted the eyes and decided not to start over so I finished the duckling with a D hook so he is close in size to his siblings. I'm sure duckling grow at different rates.

I've finally decided on the pattern for The Ugly Duckling which I thought would make a great companion set to this one since I clearly won't need more ducks. I'd been looking at several swan and cygnet patterns but finally settled on the one from Zoomigurumi 6 that I borrowed from the library. That book has a swan and cygnet pattern designed as a set. I'm hoping to finish it before the book needs to go back. While I plan on adding it to my library. I'd rather wait as I've been buying lots of other stuff lately and this could wait if I can finish up with the library copy.

Candy Corn Villager

I was a huge fan of Fisher Price's Little People as a child and I've bought many of their holiday sets for gifts over the years. This year with Covid I've been writing about starting to create a Halloween village as part of an annual Halloween box I've been sending out. However, what is a village without its villagers?

One of the patterns I've chosen to help with this is one purchased from Pamspatterns, Crochet Little Halloween set found here. The pattern set comes with a house but again more likely would make next year's box than this years. However, I am hopeful about adding some of the characters.

You may recognize some of this yarn. While the pattern calls for worsted weight yarn I wanted to use up some of the left over sport yarn from the hot pads as it is in Halloween colors. I had some acrylic yarn in peach color that worked for the face. I think the sport weight is a good choice for these smaller figures. I'm going to look into making sure I have some on hand for future projects.

I've seen lots of ghosts, Frankenstein's, and Dracula's, but I rather liked this character because I hadn't seen a candy corn little person before. Just a note, the designer does sell holiday and other collections of her little people as well as holiday set. The candy corn character is not included in the holiday pack. I have both the holiday set and the Halloween set and realized I didn't have all the Halloween characters when I was comparing the patterns and deciding if I wanted to buy the Halloween set.

Halloween House

In light of the limited activities that are going to available for Halloween this year I wanted to add something special to my Halloween box this year and settled on beginning to build a Halloween village.

Now time is limited so this might be the only house in the village this year. We will see if I get to build more, but every village begins with a building. So we begin with this round home with a witch hat for a roof. I have a haunted house pattern that if I don't get to this year will be a good addition for the village for next year. For those of you interested in the witch house you can purchase the pattern here.

The pattern calls for cotton sport weight yarn and a 2.0/2.2 hook. I started with acrylic sport weight and a D hook and even with increasing the hook size to an E I just found the house was too small. This actually worked out well for me because it meant I could use up some worsted 4 weight yarn I had left over from making the baby doll carriers from the Christmas donation. I love projects that help me work on finishing off yarn I've already dug into. I still have enough to make a small village but it is a start. To make this size house I used an E hook.

To make the door and window I did use acrylic sport yarn as I was concerned the worsted would make the items too large to fit on the house. I also added a few rows to the hat brim to make the brim wider.

I ordered the yarn I need to make more of the villagers so I have hopes of this being a fun play set for the little ones who may have curtailed fall activities. I'm hoping to have this out of here in time for it to arrive by the beginning of October so I do need to get moving.