Mega Cute Pea Babe

I ran away again, same place as my previous escape, this time for a long weekend (I skipped out of the office Thursday afternoon, and stayed until Sunday morning. It was lovely. Jealous?), and I used part of that time to finish up some projects.

Um, wait, that's exaggerating a bit. I think I only finished this one.

And an octopus for my niece. (Start to finish, inspired by this pattern, but I totally reworked it so you don't have any seams, and you get 8 legs instead of whatever she did. No nose, either. Maybe I should write that up? Forgot to take a picture.)*

But I did work on some other Year of Ami projects.

I just didn't quite finish any others.

Yet.

But I will.

Soon.

Anywho, here's the adorable, mega cute, Peababe! Finally!

Taking a ride in my pocket as I packed up to go home Sunday morning.

I'm not sorry I picked this little fella. But it did take me forever, just like I knew it would.
It's not a difficult pattern, just a lot of stitches. And with it all in tiny thread, I couldn't work on it in semi-darkness, or pick it up and do a few stitches in between doing other stuff, or work on it at all if I was tired.

I found one possible error. The leaves say to chain 10 (or 9, for the smaller leaf), and start stitching in the second chain from the hook. Then you go on to use 10 (or 9) chains total to stitch in, which you don't have, you only have 9 (or 8). So I ripped it back and added another chain. Alternatively, you could do (2sc, ch, 2sc) in the last chain as you turn to work back up the other side. I also decided to make my leaf shape more rounded, so I substituted hdc at each end of the dc sections. For example, on the small leaf, starting in second chain from hook, I worked as follows: (2sc, hdc, 3dc, hdc, 2sc) chain, turn, repeat on other side of chain. I'm thinking it might have looked cuter on mine if I made both leaves shorter, so they'd be wider.

Instead of doing a chain foundation with a row of sc for the necklace, I did a sc foundation chain. It's just tied on with a bow in back, using the tails.
I pulled up a loop near the leaves on the hat to do the tendril, so I didn't have to sew that on after.
His eyes are 9mm, which would mean that if you did one in worsted weight, you'd need some pretty big eyes to get the same proportions.
He doesn't sit up on his own. I don't know how something with feet like this can, unless it has a tail. Which this doesn't.
I really want to make the female version, with that cute skirt and the bright colors. That will have to wait a while, though.

*working on the octopus had me thinking, "gee, wouldn't this be cute in perle cotton? it would be so cute and tiny...I could totally make one with the pink I have left over." Luckily, I recovered my senses before I got out the hook again. Besides, have you ever heard of a pink octopus? Of course not. And green wouldn't have worked, either. Good thing I didn't have any orange. Or periwinkle. (Must. stop. picturing. tiny. octopus.)

Yarn: DMC "Coton Perle 5" in skeins. 3348 for main color (3 skeins), 818 for face & hands (1 skein), 502 for leaves (1 skein). I have some leftovers of all the colors, but you use up 2 skeins of the main color well before you've finished the feet (assuming you did body and arms first). Size 6 (1.6 mm) steel crochet hook.