Time for another pattern review! This time we have worked our way through Yoshi Lovey by Damn it Janet, let’s crochet.
Honestly, the moment I saw this pattern, I HAD to make it. I had just been introduced to Ribblr by Pixstitch over on Twitch and had been browsing through the app. (If you have never used Ribblr before, I would genuinely recommend giving it a go. It’s built in such a way that it protects your patterns from theft while making it very user friendly for the buyer. However I digress, perhaps a musings post on Ribblr is required in the future!)
Lo and behold, this cute Yoshi blanket jumps out and it’s love at first sight! Pattern is purchased, yarn is purchased and my first ever Ribblr make is begun.
Honestly, the pattern itself isn’t too bad. The blanket portion worked up quickly , the granny square design being beginner friendly. Sadly, what was not beginner friendly, at least for me, was Ribblr. Now that I’m sort of used to it, following a pattern on there was not easy. So don’t go into it thinking it will be the same as reading a pdf or printed out pattern. It’s really not. Sadly, this had quite a big impact on my enjoyment of this make. Struggling with an interface takes away from the enjoyment of the crochet.
That said, the pattern itself was pretty good, would definitely say this was an intermediate level pattern though, the colour changes around the head on paper make sense, but as I found before the natural angle of the round crochet, did push one of the sides into a bit of a wonky line. This doesn’t matter though because that area is covered up with one of the cheek patches. If you are after a pattern with many clear pictures to aid the process. This is absolutely the pattern for you. The accompanying pictures help everything become very clear and almost make me wish I had bought the pdf instead of the digital version on Ribblr.
Soon enough everything was assembled and it was time to add the eyes. In true Geeky Squidoo style, a pattern deviation was required. The pattern asked for the eyes to be made out of felt and glued on. In retrospect, it would have been so much easier! But who likes easy? Apparently not me! So chain stitching it was! Followed by felting on the pupil when the black chain stitch looked dreadful. There was logic in this thought process though. In my head, chain stitching the eyes on would make them more robust to not so gentle baby hands. Which, is true, gluing felt onto fabric, in my head can look bad and also is not that secure. However, had I known about the felting technique when the eyes were started, the better choice would be to have done the whole eye this way. We live and learn!
Eventually everything was assembled and all that was left was to take some pictures!
So. Overall review of the pattern? Intermediate project. There are quite a few different components you need to make and sew together, so if you don’t like assembly, this is probably not the project for you! The pattern is well written, but from my experience, is probably not all that Ribblr friendly. If you are new to Ribblr, probably check it out on Damn it Janet, let’s crochet’s blog/shop instead for the pdf pattern.
Overall a cute pattern which shapes up pretty close to the pictures!
GeekySquidoo 