Halloween is gone.... But Bowser is done!!!

So to start. . . . . .  HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! A day late but its my favorite holiday of the year so I gotta say it. Hope everyone did something fun. Be it trick-or-treating, partying, or chilling watching movies. Everyone has their own way to have fun. I did the latter and watched Doctor Who as well. I happily wore my Dino hoodie and tail I made years ago around the house all day.  (Side note: In the picture, my hair isn't actually blond. The flash just washed out the very light green. Annoying but there it is.) Easy to make any hoodie into a Dino Hoodie. I found the tutorial on Pinterest. It may be targeted for kids but I could care less. I made one for me and my brother, we love them to say the least. As for my tail, I winged a crochet tail and added matching felt from the hoodie. All I gotta do is loop a string to a belt loop on my pants and secure with a button and walla I have a tail. 

Its my go to costume if I didn't have the time or brain power to come up with anything else for the year (I usually space until the last minute. A curse but I now have my favorite stand by). Next year I kinda want to dress up as Osgood. Not sure which outfit of her's though, but I kinda want my own Baker Scarf. All the Whovian's know who Osgood is. If you don't watch Doctor Who, she is the embodiment of the fan base in one character. We ARE Osgood. 

I also finished off Bowser yesterday. Dear Lord is this guy a beast. He might not be much bigger then some of my other projects have been but he took a lot longer and was a ton more pieces than any of them. Most projects I can do in about a week as you've seen by my earlier entries here on Blogger, but Bowser took me the better part of two weeks. 

I am proud of him, although I have adjustments if I ever get a request to make him again. And with that statement we will begin the review.

 Most of Bowser's pieces are easy to make and require no adjustments. In this pattern, however there was one piece that the writer guessed on the number of rounds and essentially told the reader to crochet until you felt it was enough. This was irksome, especially since it was the shell ring (not pictured to the above), one of the bigger pieces to this creation. So I went about counting my rows till I had a tube big enough to go around the shell piece. I made sure to note this so I don't have to guess again. This was point one of bad pattern writing. 
I made an adjustment to the shell spikes that seemed like a no brainer and created less work when it came to assembly. The original pattern had the crocheter make a band of orange to go around the spikes after they were placed on the shell. I skipped that in favor of a color change on the last round. It seemed way simpler to me and honestly compared to their pictures looks just as good if a little different. My goal through out this project was to not make myself insane with the shear number of pieces involved. Which was why I opted to use felt on some of his facial features and nails. This was my first time using felt in a project and I think it made a bit of a different to how it could have looked other wise. Thumbs Up for felt!!
After the assembly of the shell I moved on to the daunting task of his jaw and head. Now the jaw its self is made of 10 pieces and is the only piece in which the writer went into some detail about assembling (helpful). And by far the only pictures of assembly that were provided. In all fairness the writer noted that they weren't the best at explaining how to put him together and said to look to the photos for placement help. This would have been just fine if the pictures weren't of about 3 angles and lacked in clarity. 

The Jaw was less difficult then I had anticipated. But I think the lower jaw would look better if it wasn't made out of three pieces, not to mention make assembly a tad simpler (me trying to make things easier on myself, again).  But it wasn't till adding the lower jaw flap, head piece, felt for the inside of the mouth, and collar that things got complicated and the directions too simple. They didn't mention where things should be attached at and left the reader to figure it out on their own. This was frustrating to say the least and cause a bit of stitching and un-stitching, then restitching. I joked that 'either I was going to bleed or get the head finished' while trying to figure the whole thing out. As you can see the head was completed and thankfully no blood was spilt. I learned a few things for next time. You must do the jaw, then the felt, head piece, stuff, and finally place the lower jaw flap. With the collar I wish it had been a tad smaller. I just think it was too big for the size of the head or you don't need the lower jaw flap.

The other helpful bit of information that was left out would have been the feet placement. It never specified which end of the leg piece they were meant to go. I believe I put them on the wrong end to start and before attaching the legs to the body decided to un-stitch them and put the feet on the other side of the leg and it looked better. Still I might try to rework the legs for the next time because I find them a bit bulky for the final product. Maybe its just me or how I put the legs on. 
I do wish that the writer had made a template for the eyes (the mouth as well), it would have made that bit a bit easier too. I ended up embroidering the iris on because I couldn't get the tiny pieces of felt to work with me. And other then them not look exactly the same, I think they came out well. 

Bowser's hair and eyebrows were about the only thing I could figure out form their pictures. They weren't very well described in the instructions. His tail and tummy strip were hardly a thought (in the instructions or in the pictures) and took some time to figure out the best placement. All in all this isn't a horrible pattern, especially if you like a puzzle.

 ▪ Pattern Readability - 

3 Yarn Balls. . . . the assembly and lack of good pictures brought this down. Any harder and the rating would be much lower.
▪ Ease of Pattern - 

 3 Yarn Balls. . . .  again it comes back to the assembling instruction. I can not stress how horrendous they were.
▪ Adjustments - 

4 Yarn Balls. . .  Most of the pieces were well written and I just replaced some with felt.
▪ Final Product - 

4.5 Yarn Balls. . . . He looks good, but maybe he could look better???
▪ Personal -  

3 Yarn Balls. . . . this would be a 4 if it was just about the final look (the legs just bug me personally). But the, at times, aggravation of this project has to factor.
▪Overall Score - 

3.5 Yarn Balls

WOW assembly dragged that score down. But thems the breaks.

So last weekend I did my first bazaar of the year and first 2 day one at that. I had some fun hanging out with one of my sisters, but it was a slow weekend for us down at the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars). This was my booth on day two. It rained really bad that Sunday too. But it wasn't a bad experience and there is always next year and other bazaars this year too.

 

Well on to the next thing on my list of orders and I should write next week with that project done. 

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Happy Crafting!