There are ongoing projects, there are things I need to knit to help keep my husband warm (and next winter will come all too soon, I think), there are things I want to make for myself, but then there are the things that are just fun to make. And here are a few of the ones I’ve done most recently. These are crocheted, because knitting isn’t so great for the making of the stuffed animals…

Hobbes.

I made him for my husband, a huge Calvin & Hobbes fan who is rediscovering his inner child, and he quotes it as the best present he’s ever received in his life. Which is kind of a high bar for Christmas presents, and I have to say that I’m likely never going to meet said bar again. Ah, well. Perhaps now that we’ve peaked early, I can relax?

I got the recipe from Sukigirl, who created it and gives it away for free, granted that no one sells the end product. Mine is slightly off from her excellent pattern, possibly because I’m constitutionally incapable of following any kind of recipe exactly. Also, JoAnn’s didn’t have Jungle Cat Orange. So… my Hobbes turned out sort of sepia-toned. His orange is more High School Gold, but this doesn’t bother Michael at all.

The Panzerbjorn.

I made him for my friend Vicki, one Christmas past. Again, that was a peak present. Why do I start out big? I need to stop that.

Liz and I found the pattern for the world’s cutest polar bear Etsy (Flurry the Polar Bear, by Kirstin M. Lund), and I came up with the armor pattern myself, made out of felt, and hinged appropriately so the Panzerbjorn can attack, run, cuddle, and be stuffed into a coffee mug. Vicki’s Panzerbjorn made his social debut at the 175th Diocesan Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York, where she threatened to sic him on anyone who exceeded their allotted time at the microphone. Yes, Vicki was Dispatch of Business. He was the very cutest threat I’d ever seen.

Scaife the Duck.

Scaife the Duck (whom you may follow on twitter, @scaifetheduck) is in the care of my friend Vicki as well, but much in the way that a cat has staff, so Vicki is Scaife’s staff. Scaife is named after one of our previous bishops, and is thusly purple. He’s a duck, because… Well, it’s sort of a long story. But people give our current bishop ducks. He’s got kind of a lot of them, now. The whys and wherefores involve the diocesan youth, a game about buying a duck, and an inside joke that just won’t die. He’s hoping, at this point, to collect the same number of ducks as his own ‘number’. (Bishops are numbered. Isn’t that strange?) His number is somewhere in the low thousands, I think.

Vicki did not donate Scaife the Duck to the bishop at the end of Convention 176, where he made his debut. You may draw whatever conclusions you like from that, but I couldn’t possibly confirm any of them.

Scaife came from a recipe by Helen Brooks, which you can find here on Craftsy.

The Others.

There were others, but I forgot to take pictures of them before I gave them away. And there will be others, still. I have some great patterns for sharks, a rather forlorn unicorn that a colleague requested as a church mascot, and the world’s cutest hello-kitty-esque recipe for Liz that her mother gave me, you know, in case I had some free time.