Hi! I’m very excited to show you my latest crochet project. 😀 And hello to all my new followers! It jumped from 212 to 239 in about a day, which made me very happy. *waves*

You might remember my post about Queen Levana a while ago. I mentioned that I was totally obsessed with The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. The fourth book comes out on November 10, and I can’t wait! In the meantime, I started on a project that I’d been wanting to do for months…crochet the main characters from the series. There are four books in the series, Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter (which isn’t out yet), and a prequel. I’m planning to do all four characters, and maybe another Queen Levana.

Marissa Meyer has a handy guide to Lunar Chronicles Character Traits which I used for reference. I finished Cinder a few days ago and thought I would do a summary of the yarn and patterns I used…for future reference, and for any Lunartics out there!

I recently discovered PicMonkey, so I had some fun editing this picture of Cinder. 😉

I found it absolutely amazing how many things I needed for a small amigurumi doll! Here’s the run down.

Materials I Used

• Red Heart Super Saver  in Buff (skin)
• Patons Metallic Yarn (cyborg limbs)
• anonymous brown worsted-weight yarn (hair)
• Stylecraft Special yarn (pants)
• gray I Love This Yarn (shirt)
• 2 x 12 mm brown safety eyes
• pipe cleaners (for poseability)
• fiberfill
• popsicle stick (to help strengthen neck)
• brown eyeshadow (for dirt on face)
• G (4.00 MM) crochet hook
• needle & thread
• yarn needle

For all of the dolls, I’m using the Mini Free Spirit pattern from By Hook, By Hand. For some reason the head was coming out oval-shaped, so I just did 13 rounds before starting the decreases. I even splurged and bought safety eyes, which I’m glad about – it makes the finished ami look a lot better, at least in my experience.  I used a G (4 MM) hook.

Cinder has a cyborg (metal) left leg and hand, so I used Patons Metallic Yarn for that. It’s hard to frog this yarn because the wool core snags on itself.

Hair

It was hard getting a wig cap that would fit perfectly on Cinder’s head. Eventually I ended up with this pattern, which is the first 5 rounds of the head pattern plus a few additional increase rounds. As you’ll see in a future post, it got much more complicated with Scarlet’s hair, which is curly.

Rnd 1: 6 sc in magic ring
Rnd 2-5: Work in back loops for the entire wig cap. Do the increases as directed in the pattern (a basic 6-st circle).
Rnd 6-7: Increase 3 sts in each of these rounds.
Rnd 8-10: Sc in each st around. At end of last rnd, sl st, fasten off and leave the end as long as you want the hair.

Cinder’s hair is some brown 4-ply worsted weight yarn. I split up the plies and hooked 4 individual strands into each stitch…then I attacked it with the flat iron. Luckily, nothing caught on fire, and the result was this cool hair-looking yarn, which made me very happy. 😀 I sewed it on with sewing thread and did her hair in a ponytail. Here she is before hair…

(I placed the eyes 3 rows above the first decrease row and 5 and a half stitches apart.)

Clothes

Here are the patterns I made up for her shirt and pants:

Shirt (with G hook and worsted-weight yarn)

Row 1: Foundation dc 20.
Row 2: Ch 2, turn, 2 dc in next 3 sts, sk 5, 2 dc in next 5 sts, sk 5, 2 dc in last 2 sts.
Row 3: Ch 2, turn, dc across with 4 increases randomly thrown in. (It’s obviously a very precise procedure!)
Fasten off, sew back together after you put it on the doll. The neck opening is too small to fit over her hips.

Pants (with Stylecraft Special DK and a D (3.25 MM) hook)

Row 1: Foundation dc 24, sl st to form a ring.
Row 2: Ch 2, dc in each st around, sl st to join.
Row 3: Ch 2, dc 12, sl st to first dc. Dc in remaining 12 sts, sl st to first st. This divides the leg holes.
Row 4 (starting the separate leg): Ch 1, dc in next 12 sts, sl st to join.
Row 5-8 (or however long you want it): Ch 2, dc around, sl st to join.
Fasten off first leg, repeat Rows 5-8 on the other leg. Weave in ends. Sew the small gap of the foundation double crochets together. I like to sew the pants to the shirt, otherwise they’ll fall down.

Yes, I pulled out some Lucy yarn for the occasion! Only the best for Cinder.

I think it’s time for another poll! How many of you have read any books from “The Lunar Chronicles”?

[polldaddy poll=9073147]

You’ll be seeing a lot more about this series in the next few weeks here. I’ve finished Scarlet, Cress and have started on Winter, and I’ll be posting all about them. 🙂

Hope you’re all having a wonderful Saturday!