Today’s pattern review is of Scrump from BlytheMeMore. This was initially purchased to make for a friend, but it was so cute I couldn’t help but share it here.
It’s silly, but some of the most fun when crafting is playing the ‘what am I making’ game with my friends over discord. The weird and wonderful guesses you get is part of the fun. However, I do find myself becoming creative in the way the progress pictures are staged to throw them off the sent a little. Which is why some of these progress shots are a little… unusual. Hope you enjoy them as much as my friends did!
This pattern is really accessible, not to mention straight forward to follow and if your makes turn out a little wonky compared to the pictures on the pattern, for this one it does nothing but enhance the final item. scrump is not meant to be perfect!
You start where you would think, with the head which is a large wonky ball, then you move onto the legs, body and then arms.
This pattern requires some sewing, would not say it was low sew, but it’s not weave in 100 tails or sew 10 spikes on. (Don’t know about anyone else, but that’s one of the things I dislike the most about crochet, having to sew stuff together to the point it has and continues to be a project stalling point for me.)
What’s nice about this pattern is once made, the legs are automatically crocheted into the body meaning you just need to sew the head to the body and the arms on…. And then the rest of it. (we’ll come back to this in a bit)
Honestly, this really does make a fantastic doll shape and there is a high temptation to make the basic doll form again and pattern hack it into something slightly different. I’ve never really crocheted a full human like doll until now and there was a kind of satisfaction of completing the final doll form that I haven’t had in a while. Even my husband was impressed by it.
Now we come to the procrastination part of the story. Remember All the extra bits I mentioned? So there’s the hair, the choker and the bow, not to mention scrump needs buttons for eyes and an embroidered mouth…. Everything was made and didn’t take long to work up, so why did the project stall at this point?
Well there were several reasons and to be very clear none of them were to do with the pattern in any way. They were all user issues. The deadline I originally had for this project vanished. Work got busy, college got busy and assignment writing took over and to continue, the hair needed blocking. From the image above, you can see the hair is curly and the pattern calls for straight straw like hair.
As most of you know, thing about crochet, is that the bits like to curl up on themselves. Which is why they need to be blocked to get them to sit right. But blocking required either getting out the ironing board or pulling out my blocking board, pins and steamer. None of which I wanted or had the incentive to do. (No deadline, no urgency, no progression). So the project sat there unfinished for 4 months. Not proud of that, however, we all have WIPs (Works In Progress) which are older (I have two blankets, one at a year and the other at 2+) it’s a perfectly normal part of the process, ask anyone, this is how UFO’s are created! (UnFinished Objects)
So what changed? Why, after 4 months did this project get finished? Again, several reasons, life became a little calmer, I was tired of having too many short term UFO’s and decided to have a ‘finishing off’ phase. (We’re doing well, several projects are now finished or in active progress again!) But the biggest change was getting to a place where I could organise and make my tools accessible. There was a blocking session where all the bits of things which needed blocking got blocked and then procrastinating from an assignment was the perfect time to sew it all together. (Honestly there’s nothing more motivating than avoiding something else you need to do!)
However, it must be stated this pattern stood the test of a hiatus! Not only was it easy to find where I left off, but the assembly instructions were also on point!
The final product was everything I was hoping for and more. This is an actual good sized toy, so if you have a kid who gets hooked on the live action Lilo & Stitch, or you remember it fondly from the first time around (it’s such a good movie!) I would really recommend this pattern to anyone!
Scrump from BlytheMeMore.
“Ohana means family. Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten,”
GeekySquidoo 