I decided to participate in the (in)famous reddit secret santa fest this year. My plan was to figure out the interests of my giftee and make him/her something unique.
After a bit of reddit stalking, I found out that my secret santa giftee was a Jacksonville Jaguar's fan. Living in Florida, I felt like making a jaguar in Jacksonville colors would be perfect.
...then I realized there was no such thing as a jaguar pattern.
So, I set out on an epic quest to make my own jaguar pattern. I played around with changing yarn colors every little bit to try to make spots, and that was taking WAY too long. So, then I decided I would just sew them on later, but the pattern base that I chose (a teddy bear body of some sorts) just wasn't working out.
I ended up making a 7 increase round head/body hybrid and just played with the limb proportions until it looked right. I took a couple of different "ear" patterns from various cat patterns and played with them until I got the ear look that I liked.
Then...the spots. The stupid spots.
I took the teal accent color of the Jacksonsville Jags and finally decided that instead of crocheting individual spots and sewing them on, it would be faster to just stitch on spots and make due. I ended up really liking the variability and the added texture.
For the eyes, I wanted them to look somewhat slanted and cat like, so I took the idea from a cat eye pattern I found on google, but didn't like - so I modified the design they had for just the pupils and laid them sideways and decided I liked that best of all.
Then a friend of mine suggested a football. And I had to make one to scale. So I played around with some different shapes and come up with the football you see here.
In short, this is a hodgepodge of patterns that I wasn't happy with, and ultimately some mutant frankenstein pattern of my own creation.
And I love it.
My husband wants me to make some little cats for the kids on his side of the family. As I work those up, I will write out my own pattern and post it here.
For now - let me know what you think of this little guy.
