FO! Turtle Power!! WARNING: TONS of pictures

This project has been a long time coming.  My lovely littlest sister has been very patiently waiting for her birthday present since March.  (Wel, I say patiently...)

I started an amigurumi teenage mutant turtle for her in February.  And while I didn't have any trouble reading the pattern (well, nearly no trouble), it required a lot of concentration.  A HUGE step up in complexity from my frist amigurumi attempt: a cupcake.

One of the reasons why the turtle took me so long to complete was because you had to sit and read the pattern for every single stitch.  Unlike a shawl or a scarf, where you can pretty much memorise the pattern and hook away without batting an eye, I needed to read every single line of the pattern.  This is probably not news to an amigurumi expert, but it certainly slowed me down.

The pattern is by Kathleen Early cleverly called Tortellini Tortoise.  You can't fool me Ms Early, I know a TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLE when I see one!

I found the pattern easy to follow, but if you try this, you're in for the long haul!  Also, stitch markers are your friend!!

Here is how it all comes toghether...

First you make the legs.  This got me excited because they were easier than I expected, and they have little toes!  And look at that shaping, the knee and calves are defined!

Unfortunately one of my legs came out larger than the other.  I'm pretty sure it was my tension (not a mistake!!) and I didn't really notice until they were stuffed and sewn togehter. 

Then you make 7 of these. 

You join them all toghether to make the shell.  I made an unintentional modification here (read: mistake) by crocheting through both loops instead of the instructed BLO (back loop only).  Ooops.  In any case, I think it gave the shell a nice ridged effet.

It was at this point where I really slowed down.  I mean, so may bits to join and ends to weave in.  You also need to make 6 little triangles to fill in the gaps between each of the shell bits, and then you crochet a big circle for the underside of the shell.  grrrr.

Then you make the chest piece, which is 8 pieces sewn togheter.    Intentional modification here.  What I'm calling the boobs (the circle bits) made accrding to the pattern came about a bit small for me (see the right boob pictured below).  So I added an extra round (see left boob).  You can see the proportion of the boobs on the picture in the pattern.

Then you sew those bits together.

Then you make the crotch, which is just a squre and is sewn onto the legs.

Then you make the sides and sew those on. More squares.

Then you make the arms.  These were fun, see his little thumbs!


Unstuffed

Stuffed

Here is an idea of him coming toghether.  

The pattern is actually for a puppet, so you also make these little inserts for the arms and head for where your finger goes through.   You hand goes up the back behind the legs in front of the shell, and you can make his arms and head wiggle.



Finger insert for arm.

You put the insert inside the arm to create a cavity.  You do this for the head as well.

This is how it will work.

The head.

At this point I got a bit over taking pictures of everything.  Also I would generally work on this at night, not ideal picture taking lighting.  So the rest are pretty much the turtle complete! 

He has a hollow belly, the idea is you can store his bits and pieces in his belly.  So you make all the coloured bandanas and weapons and store them insite!  I love that you can dress him us as any of the turtles by switching his bandanas and weapons.

Like so:

Bandanas, wrist bands, belt buckle (including my very special wonky embroidery skillz) and weapons for each turtle.



My favorite weapons are are Raphael's sais.  I had some cool silver yarn for all the metal bits.

And (finally), introducing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!!
MICHAELANGELO!!!

 LEONARDO!!

 RAPHAEL!!

 DONATELLO!!

 

And a back view.

Phew!  I am super proud of myself, despite the fact that there are TONS of imperfections.  I will most likely not make another one of these any time soon!! 

Ravelled here.

More pics on my flickr.

I feel that my posts are complete without an appearance from The Kitten.  In the course of creating the turtle, my bag of polyfill would be brought out from time to time.  I'm not sure why, but she really liked it.