They were stitched with six-stranded embroidery floss and a size 4 steel hook (2 mm). One skein of floss (8 m/8.7 yd) made one animal, with plenty left over. I used some small beads to weight their back ends, and a tiny bit of stuffing for the rest. Each one is about two inches long.

The hippo’s little ears don’t want to show up, so I think I would add a chain to each were I to make another. Otherwise I’m very pleased by the translation. Spider Plant likes them too.

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Once there were three little pigs whose mother could not afford their keep, so she sent them out into the world.

In looking for materials to build a home, the first pig met a man selling bales of straw. The second met a man selling bundles of sticks, and the third pig met a man selling loads of bricks. Each built a home and lived happily, for a time.

Eventually a wolf came to town and approached the first little pig’s house of straw. “Little pig, little pig, let me come in!” he called. “Not by the hairs of my chinny chin chin!” the pig called back. “Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in!”

And he did. The pig ran off to the house of wood, but the next day the wolf came calling there. “Little pig, little pig, let me come in!” he called. “Not by the hairs of my chinny chin chin!” the pig called back. “Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in!”

And he did. Both pigs ran off to the house of brick, where the wolf came calling the day after. “Little pig, little pig, let me come in!” he called. “Not by the hairs of my chinny chin chin!” the pig called back. “Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in!”

And he huffed, and he puffed, but he could not blow the house in. He called out again, “Could I come in, little pigs? My allergies are killing me out here. I’ll order a pizza!”

That sounded good to the little pigs, so they let the wolf in. Indoors he soon stopped huffing and puffing, and they all ate pizza.

In brief, the credits from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice are to Stumpy and Cirrus Monster, D.L. Ashliman, CopyCatFilms, and Dieter Steffman.

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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!

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Snouty Hippo Pattern

I never thought that snouty hippos would be such nosy hippos! Look at this:

What are you eating? Can we have some?

Ooh ooh! We’re good at crosswords! Does that say “Hi-po”?

Who are you? [Dachshunds, nosy in a different way.]

Hey, is that us on the computer? Click there!

Can you reach? I’m trying, I’m trying!

Information about stitching and materials is in the shop.

[1] I learned long after planning this all out that this National Hippo Day originates with the game Second Life. National Hippo Appreciation Day, which has a Facebook page, is July 24. Perhaps we’ll speak about hippos again then.

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Have you ever seen a hippopotamus fly?	Are you my mother?

I have been working off and on for quite some time to design a realistic open-mouthed hippo – with the sort of Chinese spoon shape to the jaws – but this weekend I decided to try for a thumbnail hippo, a tiny little guy. I ended up making two hippos Friday, neither of which is a final draft:

Believe it or not, the large one was supposed to be a thumbnail originally.

The bigger one has a better face shape, and just needs reproportioning to be something I would be happy showing to the world. The small one looks rather like a pig, and I plan to adapt the pattern both into a proper pig and into a proper hippo – and then make it in embroidery floss so it’s even smaller. I am extremely happy with how well my freehanding went in both cases, however.

They are on rocks because they are both chin-heavy.

Saturday I tried again with the wee one, and it came out better. I’m not sure I’m ready to call it final, but I think this time around someone looking at it would successfully guess it’s a hippo!

This time the rocks are in his body.

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