{"id":371,"date":"2014-04-13T17:52:13","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T00:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/?p=371"},"modified":"2014-04-13T17:52:13","modified_gmt":"2014-04-14T00:52:13","slug":"happy-hippo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/?p=371","title":{"rendered":"Happy Hippo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year was notable for milestone birthdays; a coworker and I both turned 40.\u00c2\u00a0 True to our personalities, we differed greatly in how we handled the milestone and how we celebrated.\u00c2\u00a0 I resigned myself to feeling my age and gathered a small circle of friends and their families for a low-key backyard hangout.\u00c2\u00a0 She was uncomfortable about getting older and needed a more noteworthy party.\u00c2\u00a0 We both had a blast.\u00c2\u00a0 And that is how it should be.<\/p>\n

I decided that it was finally time to make her a little “happy” gift.\u00c2\u00a0 Since her favorite animal is the hippopotamus, it had to be hippo-related.\u00c2\u00a0 After many hours surfing Ravelry, several starts, and much ripping back…I decided it should be the Happypotamus<\/a> pattern by Heidi Bears.<\/p>\n

Toss in a healthy dose of pink, and you get this<\/a>…<\/p>\n

\"Happypotamus\"\"Happypotamus\"\"Happypotamus\"<\/a>Ya, I know.\u00c2\u00a0 Definitely not “me.”\u00c2\u00a0 It’s all “her” though.<\/p>\n

A few notes for those of you contemplating this pattern.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Yes, it’s a tad spendy.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, it’s absolutely worth it.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m an advanced crocheter (have you seen my wedding dress<\/a>?), but this is way past my attention span for fibery engineering.\u00c2\u00a0 The pattern walked me right through it all and I never once had to think about how all of those hexagons and pentagons fit together just right to make a hippo butt or oversized hippo nose.\u00c2\u00a0 I was happy to pay the designer to figure all that out for me.<\/li>\n
  2. There are 40+ crochet shapes that are pieced together to make the hippo.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, you will get tired of making the flowers at some point.\u00c2\u00a0 I recommend streaming back-to-back episodes of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 It totally helped.<\/li>\n
  3. Don’t use cotton yarn.\u00c2\u00a0 The pattern calls for a stretchy wool\/nylon blend.\u00c2\u00a0 Use that instead.\u00c2\u00a0 Your hands will thank you.<\/li>\n
  4. Pay attention to the finished measurements.\u00c2\u00a0 Mine turned out approximately 12″ nose to tail.\u00c2\u00a0 I blame my faulty centimeter to inches conversion.\u00c2\u00a0 Again with the not thinking.<\/li>\n
  5. The “join as you go” technique is totally addicting.\u00c2\u00a0 You will want to keep going to see how the parts fit together next.\u00c2\u00a0 And there won’t be enough hours in the day.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like knitting with variegated yarn.\u00c2\u00a0 Set an alarm and step away from the crochet hook when it goes off.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ll thank yourself later.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    To summarize.\u00c2\u00a0 You start with the back legs and hippo butt…<\/p>\n

    \"Happypotamus\"<\/a>…then add in the parts to make the hugable tummy and front legs…<\/p>\n

    \"Happypotamus\"<\/a>…and finally the head and massive snout.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, and it’s definitely not done until you add the cutest ears ever and the button eyes.\u00c2\u00a0 My friend’s hippo needed something sparkly for her eyes.\u00c2\u00a0 The ones I found fit her perfectly.<\/p>\n

    \"Happypotamus\"<\/a>\"Happypotamus\"<\/a>Find a worthy recipient and get crocheting.\u00c2\u00a0 This one will be a ton of fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Last year was notable for milestone birthdays; a coworker and I both turned 40.\u00c2\u00a0 True to our personalities, we differed greatly in how we handled the milestone and how we celebrated.\u00c2\u00a0 I resigned myself to feeling my age and gathered … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[29,40],"class_list":["post-371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-knitting","tag-crochet","tag-gift-giving"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}