Using a massive skein of yarn up

I found a skein of yarn that is almost the most me yarn in the world. It is a rainbow pastel skein, and I absolutely love rainbow yarn, especially if it involves pastel colours. The only downside of this yarn is that it was only available as worsted weight yarn, rather than blanket or chenille yarn. Nevertheless, it is a beautiful yarn and I had to buy it.

I started off by making a few keyrings out of it, while I decided what I wanted to make with it. I felt like it would make the most beautiful beanie, but my track record with making beanies is not the best and I'm optimistic that it's going to be warming up, regardless of what Phil the groundhog said the other day. I needed something to make instead that would distract me from the beanie that was calling me. First of all, I thought that seeing how many keyrings I could make would be fun, because I was already making a couple of keyrings. At the same time, that seemed like an absolutely massive challenge, and I wasn't necessarily geared up for it this time. It's definitely something I'll consider doing next time, perhaps when my keyring stash has depleted a little.

Instead, I thought I would see how many full sized plushies I could make using the entire skein of yarn with any leftover yarn being used to make some keyrings. My prediction was that I could make ten plushies using my patterns, my husband initially guessed three and changed his answer to ten before he knew that was my guess.

Spoiler alert

We were wrong

Neither of us managed to guess the amount correctly, but we weren't far off. Our guess was too high. I'm sort of glad we were wrong, because it worked out to be around 16 hours worth of crocheting and my hand was really feeling it by the end of it. I crocheted all of them across three days. Originally, it should have been two days, but we ended up with spontaneous weekend plans and I got tired, so I pushed the rest of the making to the Monday, when I made over half of them.

I thought as I show each one, I would talk about how long it took, as well as how much I would like to price them vs how much I will actually price them up. While I was going through how long each one took, it made me realise what I was charging per hour of work, which kind of scrambled my head. As a result, I will be slightly increasing my prices going forward. I think I'll talk about this in depth another time, I am aware that it's not great. It's worth knowing that every item is made using a 4mm crochet hook and 12mm safety eyes. I'm using Caron Jumbo worsted weight yarn that I bought from Joann for around $9. I've organised these into a very particular order, so let me know in the comments if you can work out the order.

Number one

The first cutie I crocheted, aside from the keyrings, was and elephant. This pattern comes with the option to add a flower to the trunk, because I love the idea of elephants picking bouquets with their trucks to give as gifts. I decided that the rainbow yarn was plenty for this elephant, so I didn't go for the flower this time round, but I am working on one with chenille yarn that will have a matching flower. This elephant pattern takes around two hours because of the extra crocheting for the ears. t uses the most yarn of all of my animal patterns, usually I can squeeze an elephant out of one 100g skein of chenille yarn, if my tension is tight enough, but I like to play it safe and have a little extra yarn on hand, just in case. This elephant will be $18 on my website, although I would ideally want to list it for $30 given the time it takes.

The second plushie

I felt like this yarn was missing a lilac colour and I don't have a light lilac on hand, so for any alternate colours I needed, I used a darker one which is probably more of a purple than a lilac. I switched out any of the parts of my giraffe pattern that should have been brown, to be purple, while the rest is the rainbow yarn. I felt like the darker colour added a nice contrast to the pattern. This giraffe pattern has quite a few bits that need sewing on, which always takes me a little bit longer, so this took me around 1 hour 45 to crochet.

I should add that I crochet slower with acrylic yarn than I do chenille yarn due to the texture of the yarn and the tendency acrylic yarn has of splitting into individual strands at the worst possible moment. This giraffe will be $17 on my website

A bunny for number three

This bunny pattern was inspired by our house rabbit we had growing up, who would get forget-me-nots stuck in his mane and ears when he would play in the garden. For similar reasons to the elephant, I chose to not include the flowers for this one either. This bunny took around about the same time as the giraffe to make because of having to crochet the ears. That being said, the arms and ears are both crocheted into the body, so it does save a little bit of time and increase the stability of the plushies. I'll be pricing this bunny the same as the giraffe.

Welcoming a new aardvark

I haven't made an aardvark in over a year, so it seemed like it was about time to make one. I'll be honest, it doesn't scream aardvark in this colour scheme, but perhaps that is because I'm used to seeing it in a lilac colour instead. This aardvark took me around 1.5 hours to crochet and will be listed for $16 on my website. Ideally, I would charge over $20 for this plushie, to achieve a more sustainable hourly pay after fees and the cost of materials, but this is something to work towards this year.

Number five

This hippo is always one of my favourite makes, no matter what colour. It's made me want to make more, so I think I'll be seeing what sealife colours I have in my stash and making another one soon. This hippo took me just over an hour to make and it is always one of my faster makes, so it will be $15 on my website. I always feel like a hippo is a really simple, but effective crochet option. Although, I did have someone think it was a pig once. I actually did not end up making a pig with this yarn as I wanted to move towards some of the plushies I hadn't made in a while. I've made a couple of pigs recently, so it was time for a change.

I had to make a mouse

It isn't a Molly Mouse challenge without a mouse involved, so I made a mouse using the same purple for the ears and the nose as for the giraffe. This mouse took me an hour and a half and will be $16 on my website. This mouse pattern was designed to represent me and the pattern comes with an optional flower crown. I didn't add the flower crown as I felt like this mouse was cute enough without it, but I do feel like I need to make another one with a flower crown at some point with a different colour scheme. I do feel like this mouse is a very me one because of the pastel rainbow along with the purple, it was unintentional, I just followed the colour scheme I'd already used for the giraffe because I didn't really have enough of a yarn that would suit the pastel rainbow. Red and orange just didn't feel right.

The ghost of February

This ghost pattern is one of my husband's favourite patterns I've released, so I felt like I had to include it in this little challenge. This ghost took me around an hour to make, although with chenille yarn it's more like a 45 minute make because there's not a whole lot to it. I gave him a little purple mouth to match the colour scheme carrying throughout the challenge. This ghost will be $12 on my website because it is off season and it isn't a pattern that takes a lot of time or materials to make. The ghosts I made with this pattern last autumn were some of my best sellers so I will be making more in advance this year. I had them hold various spooky items. I'm thinking of making a tiny heart for this one to hold which would likely put the price up by $1.

The final full plushie

The last plushie in this challenge is a cow. I've made so many cows lately, they were something I got asked for a lot at markets, but when I finally designed a cow plushie and added them to my market stock, they didn't really sell. They did, however, draw people in and receive lots of compliments and I find successes vary based on the situation. Perhaps without the cows on my market display, people wouldn't have been as drawn to my booth. I did bring one of the cows I made to my rent a shelf location and that sold almost straight away. Who's to say that someone won't want a cute rainbow cow in the future? Especially with the cute little heart patch. This cow will be $16 on my website as it took around an hour and a half to make.

Let's talk about keyrings

There's always some leftover yarn with a project and for me, that's the perfect time to make some keyrings. At this point I'd already made two mini whales, an octopus and a heart, so I knew I definitely wouldn't have enough yarn left for a full size plushie. I also wasn't convinced I would have enough yarn for a jellyfish, which is a shame because it would have made the cutest rainbow jellyfish. I made five mini whales, one heart and one octopus out of this yarn and if I had frogged the heart I started making instead of chopping it off, I could've made an extra mini whale. I still might frog it and finish the 6th whale I started because of my "sell 2500 keyrings" challenge that I have in progress at the moment. Every mini whale counts, and I don't like to waste yarn.

Every pattern I've used except the octopus are on my website and you'll also find some of them on Ribblr and here! I plan on writing up my octopus and jellyfish keyring patterns soon. If you'd like to purchase any of the plushies, they'll be on my website on the 11th of February. There's only one of each though, so if you've got your eye on something, don't wait around. Let me know what you think about the pricing, what would you charge for each given how long they take?