building a crocodile

I thought I might like to make a post showing the construction of one of my creatures. This one is a crocodile I'm making for a new friend who lives in New York. Lucky her! I think she said she lives an hour to an hour and a half outside of the city. I want to go there. I'm a little jealous of my crocodile. But whining about that isn't why I'm here! I'll get back to it. Oh and a little fwiw in case you are interested in doing so, I believe clicking on the pictures will enlarge them.

This is the first picture I took and I did so last night. I was crocheting whilst watching one of my favorite shows online after the kids had gone to bed. I paused after sewing the mouth and crocheting teeth in the lower jaw. I usually prefer to crochet in round, but the croc really seemed better off being made flat first.

I worked on him some during church, attaching the eyes and such (sure hope the pastor didn't mind!). This afternoon we watched A Christmas Story and Elf (hey, it's Sunday!) and I crocheted some more. I love the weekends! As you can see I went with a lighter green for the bottom, I guess I felt it would look more natural. I think I like it that way though I may perhaps just do the belly lighter and the mouth all dark if I again make a crocodile. I attached the bottoms and continued with the dark green (crocheting in the round this time!) for the tail.

Here he is getting his sides sewn and ready for stuffing. His tail had been stuffed already. (oh and you may recognize the bag in the picture ... I won it in a contest a friend hosted on her blog and now take it everywhere with me!)

I crocheted lines down his back, I guess to make him look more real too. That's the way most of them seemed in the pictures I looked at. Most of the animals I make come out of my head but sometimes when I can't quite get a picture, I'll google. My favorite inspirations come from coloring pages.

This picture is a little on the dark side. Sorry about that. Here I'm making his legs. I first crocheted 4 small squares that I sewed into triangles. The main part of the legs were attached by putting the top of the triangle inside the leg and sewing. I hadn't tried anything like that before and I was quite happy with it! The last thing to do was attach the legs and give him a name...

Silas