You saw the first draft of the snouty hippo some 17 months ago (Hi, FYDP), and it saw a few versions in between. I thought I’d show you them.
Top to bottom, let me introduce the versions.
Draft 1 (red/orange/gray variegated): freehanded, intended to be a thumbnail hippo!
Draft 2 (purple variegated): snout adjusted, head shortened and body increases moved to chest instead of evenly spaced. Granted, this yarn’s a little thicker, but look how my stitching got larger over the months!
Draft 3 (orange): head shortened again, diameter of body decreased.
Draft 4 (red variegated): one more little head adjustment, time to make the body not a tin can, feet needed shrinking down.
Draft 5 (screaming yellow meemie): yet one more head adjustment, minor body adjustment, learning how to sew the legs on in appropriate locations. Very similar to the final version – I just made another edit to the body.
Here’s a better pair of photos to see the changing shapes.
Rumor has it there are amigurumi designers who sketch their creatures, stitch them up, make a second copy for in-progress photos, type the pattern and send it off for testing. I am not such a designer. Most of my patterns work like this one, with quite a bit of distance between the initial draft and the final version. Worth the effort? You tell me!