#princess tutu amigurumi project

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She’s done!

Seriously, I had the initial idea for this doll back in 2018 or so, and I am SO THRILLED to finally have her completed! She looks beautiful - there was in fact a reason why I used Fancy Yarns for the magical girl ballerina princess.

Despite a relatively short process making her, there were a lot of new techniques I’ve never used before for this. There’s wire in her antenna and the bow-wings, and the shoes were a new method. And those wings required double-treble crochet in a magic ring, which is not my forte. I also haven’t worked with wire or used a method like what I did for the dress in a while. So I’m VERY pleased with how well she turned out!

Now to do her as a duck.

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… Okay, this is potentially one of my wackier ideas, but I’ve already cut the nice yarn so I lose nothing by trying.

I might be making shoes and feet separately and then crocheting Ahiru into them.

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Me: Oh, I’m almost done with Ahiru!

Me: *Suddenly remembers that yes there’s wings and little tails her dress still needs, not just the hair and the arms.*

Me: Riiiight. I don’t know why I keep forgetting the little wings.

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Her little ballerina slippers look SO GOOD, but the best part is? I used thin-gauge wire and made sure to give extra length for this part of her skeleton. Not only are her legs poseable, but so are her feet: she can go en pointe or off.

She is otherwise in what I call the Fresno Nightcrawler stage of dollness - head, body, finished legs, but no arms and only wearing what clothes on her torso are made as part of it (here, the bottom portion of her leotard, since the pink underlayer of the tutu will be attached next and then the dress itself will be a separate piece sewn onto her.) Which is always amusing. But since I could do a little bit of her hair, she really does look more like Ahiru than usual at this stage.

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Amazing what a couple details do for recognizability. The cap itself still wasn’t much, but add an antenna and suddenly, it’s Ahiru. (I’ll probably do eyebrows after her full hair is done, but I figured I could do her mouth now. Can’t figure out how to make her eyelashes yet - might be the only method that’d work would require more involvement in the eyes than I usually take, in which case I feel fine simplifying down.)

Also, the wire worked. It’s not droopy! And my tendency to do hair caps over the scalp but under the main hair proved helpful for inserting the wire ends. (For those wondering, her bangs layer over the Swan Lake headpiece that is intimidating me as I try and figure out how the HECK I actually want to do this now that it’s not an abstract question. I have two options for yarn and I’m not sure which will work. I’m 80% sure I’m going to do her limbs and dress first.)

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I wanted to have a sense of the hair before I put the eyes in, since Ahiru only has some pretty minimal bangs in this form (I do have a plan for the antenna, though!) Which means that she looks a bit more like herself than average for a doll at this stage.

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Realized I use a different pattern, generally speaking, for amigurumi heads than a basic “increase to size and repeat”, and since Ahiru’s so early on I decided to restart in a slightly different yarn color since I wasn’t thrilled with my usual beige for her skin tone. (It’s not terribly off, but hers is a pretty warm tone compared to what I had been using and I had one that’s slightly more in line.) As a bonus it’s a bit closer to the weights of everything else, so that’ll make scaling easier.

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I definitely still have the muscle memory for knitting, yay, but not the muscle STRENGTH to keep it up for long enough to finish even a beginner project in any reasonable time.

Besides, I’m itching to get back to my hooks. And I’ve kept this idea waiting for so long already. Once upon a time, there was a princess who was a duck.

Let’s go.

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At the stage where there’s more amigurumi complete than left to go! Not sure if I’ll finish tonight and regret tomorrow or not - I may need blocking for a few parts - but Ahiru’s so close to done!

She looks so good.

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Step one: Find teardrop-shaped crochet pattern.

Step two: suck at double-triple crochet in a magic ring.

Step three: Find different roughly teardrop-shaped crochet pattern.

Having more success there.

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Being out of practice certainly made the pendant difficult, but given how complicated it is to begin with and how hard it is to find appropriate beads at the size I need, I’m pretty happy with how I’ve done.

Saving a better look at the dress for when I’m entirely done. She really is shaping up!

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Okay! Proof of concept: Done. I should be able to crochet with wire for Ahiru and have her hair antenna be capable of basic structural stability.

Now, is this proof of concept SUCCESSFUL? Different question, it does NOT work for something as complex as the Pikachu tail pattern on my first attempt. Maybe I’ll be able to thread it into one of the tail pieces after the fact, or mold it to fit within the two. It’s 20-gauge, I actually CAN manipulate it by hand and I own pliers and nylon jaws. But I’m glad I did it on the project I’m less invested in (one more pattern test of the Dumpling so I can get pictures in-progress) to figure out the basics.

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Yeah, the little shoe I had made intending it to be a normal foot didn’t work, I can’t really scale down small enough to fit given the yarn I’m using for her tights color, but the process is sound and I can definitely do chains for the ribbons or sew them in.

… Actually if I could do it as essentially embroidery that would look cool. Hm.

Also, it’s nice being able to crochet an entire leg and shoe plus improvising attempts and still feel like I have arm strength in the tank. I love being able to create things. And even with things I need to improvise on, she’s working up fast and I have a pretty good idea how most of the dress is going to go. (Just gonna need to figure out the wings, really, and a little bit on the little blue tails, and the rest is making sure my ideas are sound which I suspect they will be.)

She’s gonna look so good.

… Okay, this is potentially one of my wackier ideas, but I’ve already cut the nice yarn so I lose nothing by trying.

I might be making shoes and feet separately and then crocheting Ahiru into them.

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Update: Can’t finish tonight because I am too sleepy to manage magic ring shenanigans for the last remaining crochet bit (the other back bow-wing,) and I’m pretty sure using magic ring actually matters to getting the right shape.

The deepest of sighs, the biggest of frownie faces. But alas. She will still be here tomorrow.

And I’m using way too much wire to like, snuggle this amigurumi so it’s not as though I’m missing out on anything.

At the stage where there’s more amigurumi complete than left to go! Not sure if I’ll finish tonight and regret tomorrow or not - I may need blocking for a few parts - but Ahiru’s so close to done!

She looks so good.