Chester the Extreme Crochet Cat

Inspiration for Chester

Chester first became an idea when my sister-in-law, Liz, had a go at amigurumi.  She's a quilter really but a few of us got interested in crochet and I did a beginners crochet course so we would get together each week to help each other out (we called ourselves the Happy Hookers!).  Liz bought a book called 'Hello my name is Amineko' by the author Nekoyama and started crocheting these delightful little cats.  Amineko is Japanese for 'crochet cat'.

At the same time I was just beginning to explore the idea of extreme crochet (big hooks and multiple strands of yarn).  Then I had an idea ... a 'ping' moment .... why not crochet a big Amineko!  I had no idea how big he would turn out, but the largest hook I had at the time was 12mm.  5 strands of yarn seemed to sit comfortably on the hook, so this is what I chose to use.

Using the pattern in the book, I decided to start on the largest bit of him first - the body. It grew quite quickly and I got rather excited as I had no real idea of how big he would turn out!




The yarn I used is carpet yarn, about dk or aran thickness.  I used two strands of grey, each a different shade which came on individual 500g skeins.

Providing they are placed over chair legs to stop them becoming tangled you can use them directly from the skein.  Try to use them without doing this and you soon end up with an unuseable birds nest!  Believe me I speak from experience!



The other colours were chosen randomly and came in chains like the one below.  I had to pick out 3 strands of yarn at a time from each chain - not as easy as it sounds.  They were strewn all over our lounge floor for days at a time until I had finished using my chosen colours.


The body grew and grew!  The picture below shows the body at the point where I started decreasing for the shoulders.  I had completed just 46 rows!


Look at this!  He has a waist of 42" without his stuffing!












'He' I here you ask?  Shouldn't he have a name?  Well by this time that was what I was thinking!  So after much deliberation 'he' was named Chester!

Here, you can see Chester's body finished and I was eager to start the next bit.  Now .... what will that be?

I decided on the head next.  Actually the head had more stitches around than the body, but luckily not as many rows!

The head finally finished, I needed some way of keeping it's shape whilst I took the photo!  Mmm what to use?  You guessed it! My OH!

I was getting rather excited now to see what Chester was going to look like with head and body attached! 

Stuffing, that's what was needed next!

Not the easiest of tasks as you can imagine!

After much consideration, cost, weight, where to buy I decided to use bean bag beans for the body and the head.  We had some bean bag chairs taking up room so thought I would use the beans from these.  That presented another problem!  The very nature of crochet leaves small holes between the stitches, so unless I want little bubbles oozing out of Chester I was going to have to make a 'bag' for the body beans and one for the head beans!  and all the time so eager to get him stuffed to see him start to come to life! Aaargh!!

Well bags made, this is where the fun started!  From previous experience I new the beans stuck to everything!  And I mean everything!! (When I went to bed I found one stuck to my tummy!)  Enlisting the help of my ever suffering OH we used a jug to transfer the beans from the chair to the body, and another jug full ... and another jug .... and another .... then the head ... another jug .... then another ... and another!!!  Finally full, I sewed him up quick to stop any leakage!    This was surprisingly theraputic!

And here he is!

I thought the photo on the right added a bit more scale to him.

Getting even more excited now!  What bit next?  Well all the large bits have been completed so arms and legs I think.  These crocheted up quite quickly in comparison to the head and body (thankfully) as I was getting a bit impatient by now.

I was quite surprised to find the arms were longer than the legs!

Now, I came across a problem?  All the time I was crocheting the arms and legs I was wondering how I was going to stuff them.  As soon as I started the paws I realised I really should stuff those bits first, as they are a bit larger than the rest of the arm or leg, but being impatient thought "no, it'll be fine".  Ok, legs and arms crocheted - now what!  Er ... beans, er ... polyester type stuffing, er ... , er ... mmm!  Not sure!

After consultation with a few people and finally my sister-in-law we decided on an old single duvet!  You would not believe, but it took a whole single duvet to stuff the arms and legs.  I had to think big here!  Just as you would perhaps use a knitting needle to poke stuffing into a tube, how was I going to get the rolled up duvet in?  I split the duvet into four and stitched two lines of stitching between each one, then cut up between them.  I rolled them into 'sausages' and then started poking them into the arms and legs - using a broom pole.  Told you I had to think big!

Nearly there!  Chester's looking really good!

Now for the ears! Easy peasy after everything else! And the nose!

I decided to make the nose and eyes from felt and stitch them on separately.  The nose was fairly simple but choosing the correct position and shape for the eyes was a different matter.  Each very small change altered the look of Chester's face, quite dramatically. 

OK!

A drum roll please!

Are you ready for this?

Chester's coming!

...

.......

Chester where are you?!

Hooray! He's here!