The Scariest Special Order Crochet Project

This is probably one of the scariest crochet requests I have ever received.

A few weeks ago, I received the request to change a baby blanket into a stuffed animal. At first, I thought this would be a quilt into a teddy bear...seemed easy enough. Imagine my shock when I learned it was a knitted blanket, and they wanted it crocheted into an adorable pig. This means I would be taking a precious item, which a child has held onto since birth, completely destroying any reminisce of a blanket, and taking the now, ball of yarn, and crocheting it into an amigurumi toy. Let that sink in, I would have to destroy the blanket by unraveling the entire thing. There is no coming back from that.

Well Loved Blanket

Before I agreed to attempt this project, I clearly stated that this will be the end of the blanket. There will be no turning back. What once was will never be again. On top of that, we may not even get what we want out of it. The blanket had been repaired so many times that the yarn may not hold its shape or have the strength to be a stuffed animal. Until I began the process of metamorphoses, I wouldn't know.

They agreed, I nervously agreed, and thus, the scary adventure began.

gulp...

Going through the process of rescuing the well loved blanket fell into 3 steps.

1. the whole thing would have to be undone. Meaning, that the blanket would have to become, once again, a skein of yarn.

2. I would have to create a pattern to make a large stuffed animal out of a well-used and thin strand of yarn (thin means thousands of stitches)

3. I would have to crochet the ball of yarn into the desired animal.

This process seems easy enough, but talk about moments of anxiety. If, for any reason, something went wrong, such as the yarn is simply too worn and won't hold its shape, the customer loses their child's favorite item. There is no way for me to return the yarn to its previous state.

The blanket as ball of yarn

Thankfully, the customer was willing to carefully unweave the blanket and spin it into a ball. I gave them a few simple instructions, and the customer did a fantastic job getting the blanket to look like a cats favorite toy. A few days later, I was handed a ball of yarn. At this moment, the clock was ticking, and the child was waiting for their comfort toy.

While I was waiting for the ball of yarn, I created a pattern for their desired animal, a pig. This was certainly a fun challenge. I have made larger items, but my expertise tend to run in the miniatures. Funny enough, I still made the pattern too small and had to readjust on the fly.

Miniature turtle

Taking great care, I began crocheting the toy. I had to continue checking the strength of the yarn (some strands were weaker than others), I had to make sure I had enough yarn for the size of the animal, and I had to make sure the pattern worked. This yarn could not survive much more unraveling, so each stitch was permanent. Eventually, after sewing several pieces together, the little pig took shape.

There were a couple of scary moments where the yarn was too weak to do anything. One tug caused it to snap and I would have to go through the yarn ball looking for stronger strands. But, even with all of the scary moments, I finished the project. Below is the finished amigurumi pig. I do believe it turned out adorable, and I hope the child loves the pig.

The Pig is done!

A comfort blanket is now a comfort toy <3