Day 24 - 4/19/15 - Baymax is Done! Gray Totoro is Begun!

Boy there's nothing like the feeling of completing a piece.  Especially when you are going to give it to someone.

I got to complete Baymax today.

Sewing on the fingers was surprisingly easy.  They ended up looking a lot better than I was expecting.  They're a simple 7 foundation chain, 6 single crochet, and fold in half.  I used the "front" tail to sew up the finger.

I decided to flatten the end of the arm and sew it together prior to attaching it to the body.  In looking at how the arm naturally laid on the body, I sort of tucked one end of the arm end under the other and sewed them so that the join to the body would be as flat as possible.  Baymax in the movie had a very smooth arm to neck join.

The legs were more uncooperative than the arms.  I first attached a leg, I thought carefully, but the darned thing was almost sticking out at 90 degrees from the body.  The legs are supposed to sit fairly straight from the bottom of the body, hence the flap.  I then carefully undid the join and redid the leg.

The second time I really just forced the thing to where I wanted it.  I didn't care if it cooperated or not.  I did the sewing around where I was forcing the leg to sit.  This ended up working very well as I got the legs to sit about as straight as they can with the stitches the way they are.

And there you go - Baymax done.

I wanted to pose Baymax with Trini.

And here is the Craft Card that I devised.  This will go on every piece I make, with a born on date and a signature.

And just because I guess I must be ADD or something, I started the Gray Totoro that I'm making for ME!

About Hook Sizes

I thought that Stacey had said to use a 5.0 mm hook to make her ball monster.  I went ahead and made that monster and thought that it had worked well.  Then I realized that I didn't stuff the ball monster firmly at all, so the holes weren't showing through.

I translated this experience to baymax and used the 5.0 mm hook.  Well, as you can see it left some big-ol holes!  It's a white monster with white stuffing, so I'm ok with the surface, and Amy loves it of course, so I'm not beating myself or anything.

So when Lucy Collin said to use an E (3.5 mm) hook for Totoro I kind of flipped - it's so small!  I decided to favor the center and go with a 4.0 mm hook, which looks much tighter (see photo) but isn't unwieldy.

I sure hope that when this is stuffed it looks nice and tight.  I'm feeling pretty comfortable with the 4.0 mm hook.