My nephew had his second birthday a few days ago. He loves the story and book 'the always hungry caterpillar' so I thought, it is a good idea to replace the torn book with paper pages withone that is more sturdy and can withstand his repeated 'reading' of it better.
The book alone seemed to be not really an appropriate gift for him, so I took the book, went to my yarn store and asked for help finding a variegated green yarn for the body, the other yarns i had at home.
Green is so absolutely not my colour, so you wont find it in my stash.
Now this was three weeks ago, I started knitting it up, being asked what weird sock shape this will be, and people never thought this tube will be a caterpillar at all.
I had it in my mind just as it turned out, down to the antennae, and the pull string feature with which the slender caterpillar turns into the chubby one getting into the cocoon.
I crocheted an egg it can be stored in, and hatch and in the future it will get all the requisites it needs. Some food to gnaw and eat through, and a little coat with wings it can be tucked into to transform into the butterfly.
This will be food for future gifting occasions, and I will keep the yarns in a separate bag so in case repairs will be necessary, I can get the original yarns to mend the boo boos, it might get.
He was a happy little birthday boy, when he unwrapped the book, he just saw a little glimpse of the cover and said 'Raupe satt' which is the german title, Raupe Nimmersatt. And when it was completely unwrapped, he had to check if the inside was as he expected it. Unwrapping the toy was the greatest, even his big sister was envious, and came to ask if I could make her one, also.
Our mother suggested I knit them up and sell them, but I guess there is copyright and merchandise problems. This caterpillar will be a uniqe specimen, and I can research abouth what is possible before I step into problems.
There was a lot of work in it, and a lot of love and fun doing it. It made me happy to see that he liked it a lot.
My sister asked me,
if it was washable because she suspects the caterpillar will be fed with all different things, and might land in the sauces and foods her little son eats.
Of course I had that in mind already and since it is all cotton and acrylic yarns it is no problem to toss it in the washer. I only hope the filling will hold up and make it not look lumpy, but I chose some that was labeled as washable, so it should be ok.
Here the best shot of it
http://www.flickr.com/photos/43126982@N00/1428527222/
I dont know why blogger does not allow me to include it from the web, even though flickr is recommended as a place to get pictures from. They are in my account, and I dont know why it does not work :-(
