One of my wee pals is having a birthday. He loves Duggee (in the way only a small child can love something) and so the theme of the knitting was a no brainer.

However, it turns out that patterns aren’t that easy to come by? Is it a copyright situation? Have many cease and desists been sent out to other knitters who’ve made Duggee items? It’s hard to say.

There are a handful of amigurumi patterns available, but I didn’t want to do that. I felt strongly that I wouldn’t be able to accurately convey the essence of Duggee. I did find a chart on Pinterest that linked to a now-defunct Etsy shop – the chart was for a C2C blanket pattern. I wanted to have a go at one, but I did some (possibly incorrect) sums and thought I would need a frankly extraordinary amount of yarn. So I settled on using it as a straightforward knitting chart instead.

And then I wandered about the internet for a while, looking for yarn in the right shade of brown. I found Yarnsmith’s Snug as a Bug (Wool Warehouse link). It had the right brown – Teddy Bear – and the right mustard yellow (Sunshine) and light brown (Sandy Camel) for his shirt and trousers. I bought a 300g skein of each, plus three skeins of white.

It’s a chunky, polyester yarn that’s ideal for blankets. Very snuggly and knits up on 8mm needles, though in hindsight 7.5mm may have given a better finish. The blanket was done in no time, after which I applied myself to the details.

In the cartoon, Duggee’s neckerchief and woggle are integrated into his body, but I didn’t want to buy 300g of a bright yellow yarn to use about 10g of it, so I made it separately with DK on 4mm needles. Basically made a tiny scarf, on the bias. Then knit a rectangle in dark blue, sewed it up, and attached.

Finally some badges – a good use for scraps of cotton – and I crocheted them freestyle until they looked right, then sewed them on.

The eyes… oh lord the eyes. I hate doing eyes and the process included texting several people to say ‘I hate doing eyes’. I started out crocheting both whites and pupils, then attaching.

First of all, they were googly in a way I hadn’t intended. Second of all, when I put them through the wash, the white kind of popped up away from the fabric of the blanket. I did not take a pic of the bulging eyes lest a child come across it and be saddened.

In the end I chose just to use the black parts, and position them purposely askew, as per my reference chart. He’s standing somewhat angled to the side (hence the asymmetrical woggle placement) so the angled eyes make sense and I’m much happier with them now. In the cartoon he sometimes has whites to his eyes and sometimes not, which has certainly worked in my favour on this occasion.

I like that the blanket has a few different textures – the soft knitted part, the slightly firmer crochet border, the full on button-y badges and the movable neckerchief will hopefully be much enjoyed. It’s pretty enormous at 53 x 52 inches, but I imagine not too large for a determined young guy.

I hope it will be dragged around the house, and have juice spilled on it, and that it ends up really baggy in at least one corner where it’s been pulled on every day. All of that would be exactly right.

I’ve added this post to the Unraveled Wednesday linkup, with thanks to Kat for hosting.