Zombie Wooble

My grandson is hooked on Woobles. I'm crocheting another for him for his 11th birthday. It is a Zombie and Zombie baby from the Minecraft video game. A Zombie in this game is the most common mob and it is hostile. In Minecraft, a mob (short for "mobile entity") is any living, moving creature or non-player character in the game. Zombies spawn in dark areas and attack by slowly approaching the player and punching them. These monsters will aggressively hunt and attack you if you get too close. Defeating them often yields valuable loot or experience points. Granted, I do not understand how they spawn or how they treat their young if they are that hostile... Curious about how zombies spawn? Check out this article and scroll down to the spawning section.

My goal is to make a Daddy Zombie and a baby zombie. Whoops, perhaps they are a Mommy and baby Zombie...? When I looked this up, according to AI:

Zombies in Minecraft do not have a specific gender. While their appearance resembles the default male player character, ... the game's original creator designed almost all mobs in the game to be genderless.

Making the main body progresses really quickly for me. The following photo shows the top half of the zombie's body. He is crocheted from the top down - dark green top toward dark blue bottom. I can finish the main part, complete with eyes and stuffing in very little time. Adding the tiny appendages and the detail embroidery are what slows me down, even though the instruction are very clear and specific on placement.

I followed the instructions carefully to attach the big Zombie's plastic safety eyes and to embroider his mouth and nose. In retrospect I  should have stitched his nose and moth in a color other than the dark green, perhaps black, to have it show up better on the variegated green. But I was faithful to the directions and perhaps this color palette is more true to that of the characters in the game. When I researched the "correct" color palette for a Minecraft Zombie, all the images do show a rather subdued nose and mouth.

I moved on to make the baby zombie. His face has embroidered eyes rather than plastic ones and he has no nose or mouth. Simple as it was, I messed up the first time with the eyes and had to unstitch and embroider them farther up. I think it really does make a difference, otherwise I would not have bothered.

Here are my completed Zombie and Baby Zombie. These are my sixth (and seventh?) Woobles. After the photo are references and links to my previous five.

• 1/22/24 Strawberry the Axolotl Wooble
• 10/15/25 Creeper Wooble
• 2/6/26 VAN the Guardian Robot Wooble
• 3/20/26 Chilly the Frog Wooble
• 4/30/26  Scooter the Wooble Raccoon

Scooter the Wooble Raccoon

My grandson in Oklahoma is really into these crocheted critters. Scooter the raccoon is listed as beginner level easy, but I will admit the fussy parts such as the face mask, the snout the ears and the tail do require a bit of patience as these parts are all crocheted separately and then sewn onto the main egg body. Here is Scooter before his tail and ears are attached and before his ears are embroidered.

This kit had the additional skill of changing colors. The white top on the black mask and the tail are where this skill comes into play. I got extra practice on the gray and black striped tail. Black would not be my color of first choice for a beginner because, being so dark, it is difficult to distinguish the individual stitches. Even the tutorial advised to have good lighting. I persevered, and here is my completed Scooter the Raccoon. I will admit, sewing on the ears and embroidering them took deep concentration, but came out fine.

Scooter is my fifth Wooble kit completion. Here are my other four Woobles with links to each's respective dated blog post. Wooble kits really are fun and can truly be accomplished by a beginner crocheter. Some are easier than others, though, so I hope my descriptions can help you pick out your first one to crochet. 

                    1/22/24 Strawberry the Axolotl Wooble  &  10/15/25 Creeper Wooble

        2/6/26 VAN the Guardian Robot Wooble  &  3/20/26 Chilly the Frog Wooble        

HAPPY WOOBLING!

Chilly the Wooble Frog

Today I finished the Wooble named Chill-lieve in Yourself along with his Tiny Buckle Backpack. My ten-year old Grandson in Oklahoma loves these little critters and puts in his requests for Grandma to make them for him. This is the fourth in his collection after Strawberry the Axolotl (post for 1/22/24), Creeper (post for 10/15/25), and VAN (post for 2/6/26). The main body generally works up very quickly and then I stall and procrastinate making the appendages or accessories. This time I moved right ahead to do the belly and eyes on the frog.  He came out amusing and huggable. The backpack is tiny and easy, but fussy to do. After the bright turquoise and rich gold, the dull gray and black color combination was uninspiring. I dragged my feet to complete the Tiny Buckle Backpack. Once I started it, though, it was no big deal at all. I kicked my self for delaying — yes, kicked myself with those very same feet I had been dragging. Here are the frog and his accessory completed. They are both incredibly adorable.

The Chill-lieve in Yourself Bundle came in a series of packages. I worked from a tray to keep all the components organized and together. The illustrative teaching videos are excellent. I am right-handed but it is good to know that there is a left-handed learning option as well. For those with enough crochet background, there is a straight text pattern option to follow also, so your pace is not constrained to video speed. Though, as a perk, the videos themselves have selectable speed options. Another feature to be praised about these Woobles is their customer service.  I had trouble locating the directions for the backpack. I did not know that they were separate from the frog itself and needed a different designated password. I texted the customer service number provided in the kit; within an hour I got a reply! After a couple of exchanges over the next two hours, my issue was completely resolved. I was given a password to move forward, and I went merrily on my crocheting way. This occurred on a late Saturday evening — now that's service!

Here is the promotional photo for advertising the completed project on the left, next to my own version of Chilly on the right. The stitches attaching the belly look different, so I either misread the directions or the video described a technique for attachment other than the photo. When you cook up a recipe, it is alway gratifying if your creation looks like the picture. The same is true of needlecraft. Close enough and still cute... I am pleased. I also strongly believe Isaiah will love them.

VAN the Wooble

Those Woobles commercials are positively everywhere! Before these amigurumi crochet kits became so prolific though, my grandson Isaiah in Oklahoma developed a strong liking for them. The first one I made for him was a pink Strawberry the Axolotl, seen in my post dated 1/22/24. I also made him a green Creeper from the Minecraft game, seen in my post for 10/15/25. This past Christmas Isaiah researched the Wooble website and told me his five top choices. VAN was the  highest on his list and so I crocheted it for him.

The kits are a bit pricey but the contents and the excellent instructional videos are well worth it. The yarn is heavy enough so the working gage is large enough to see, and learn, especially for old grandma eyes. Neither does the yarn split, making it great for beginner and seasoned crocheters as well. I also love the special touch of a custom crochet hook with an easy grip handle with images dedicated to the figure being crocheted. The hook is shown in the foreground of the following image. Since I placed an order around Christmas time, the kit also came with a gift bag for giving. My grandson is going to be excited about this extra surprise. The back of the bag specifically says THE WOOBLES.

So much does Isaiah like the Woobles, he asked if he could learn to crochet. His mom enrolled him in a local class and he intently worked away, focusing hard to learn. I suspect watching a Wooble video would be even better and help him more.

Van is super cute, though I cannot explain the appeal. The two hemispheres were a cinch to make. The two-tone horn was a challenge. It was pretty small, made separately, and then sewn on. With this itty bitty horn, I learned a handy skill, how and when to change colors in a single crochet or an increase when working with two colors at once. Instructions were even detailed enough that I knew between which rows and how many stitches between points to embroider the facial features. 

Isaiah is 10½ years old, so I have a limited amount of time before he reaches those hard-to-please teen years. I have more of these kits to crochet for Isaiah. I plan to get to them quickly, before he loses interest. I need to indulge his wishes soon, while he still has them. Kids change so fast!

Background

In writing this post I began to realize the appeal of VAN. VAN is a guardian space robot from the planet BT. He acts as a protector of BT21, 24/7. Per the BT 21 planet characters website:

Hailing from Planet BT, Prince TATA dreams to spread love across the galaxy. Deciding that destiny is at hand, TATA summons guardian robot VAN to prepare for an interstellar journey to Earth. Shortly after arrival, the Prince concludes that the most effective means to win over the hearts of earthlings is to become a super, no... something much more ambitious. A UNIVERSTAR.

Other characters per that same website appear in the next image.  Gee, I wonder if a request will be rolling in for Grandma to crochet these other characters. BT is the planet. The suffix 21 stands for 21st century. This universe of characters is an offshoot of South Korean LineFriends. The Woobles recommended order of difficulty is: KOYA, RJ, SHOOKY, MANG, CHIMMY, TATA, COOKY, VAN, so apparently I did the hardest first.

I still have a backlog of Woobles to crochet from Isaiah's Christmas requests, so the characters of the BT21 planet and any associated galaxy will just have to wait.

Woobles Crocheted Creeper

My grandson is into the video game Minecraft and wanted a character from the game, a Creeper, crocheted for him. Woobles are amigurumi crochet kits that comes with exquisite step by step video instructions for a wide variety of figures. My daughter sent me a kit for the figure Isaiah wanted. I began crocheting it, faithfully followed along on the video, using the soft yarn provided. The yarn has great quality as it has a good weight to it and does not split. With the help of my iPad, a blocky green critter began to take form.

The facial features, eyes and mouth, are provided and attach with a snap-on safety ring and cone attachment method. I hesitated before doing this step. Once snapped on, the pieces cannot be removed — hence the concept of safety. I watched the video several times; the placing and affixing was no biggie. My hesitancy was merely my initial lack of confidence. Once I forged ahead, my Creeper with two eyes and a mouth came to be. I think his mouth is more of a a mustache... but what do I know?

Next up was crocheting the four legs. These are itty bitty parts, only five rounds but I kept losing count and having to start over again. I think I made seven legs before succeeding in producing four legs. And just like with the eyes, I paused before attaching the legs. The instructions were clear, so clear and detailed, that I did feel a teensy-weensy bit overwhelmed.

But what is a Creeper without legs? Those legs were the final step and I finished him off. Here is the completed Creeper. This is going to the same grandson who loved the Wooble Axolotl (post for 1/22/24).

While crocheting this project I did learn some interesting facts about Creepers and also some video game terminology. Per a Wikipedia Creeper explanation:

The character model that later became the creeper was first created on August 20, 2009, as a result of a coding error when creating the pig mob in the early pre-alpha stages of Minecraft's development. The game's creator, Markus Persson, accidentally mixed up the dimensions of the model, swapping the length and height. Instead of deleting the result, Persson instead stated "I'll keep it for a creepy creature", and later added a green texture based on the in-game leaves texture to the model, gave it aggressive AI, and turned it into a hostile mob.

I also learned that Minecraft is a sandbox video game. What is that? Per Wikipedia's sandbox explanation:

A sandbox game is a video game with a gameplay element that provides players a great degree of creativity to interact with, usually without any predetermined goal, or with a goal that the players set for themselves. Such games may mostly or totally lack any objective, and are sometimes referred to as non-games or software toys. ... The term "sandbox" derives from the nature of a sandbox that lets people create nearly anything they want within it.

I really did sew on all four legs. Here is proof. I used a pair of hinged mirrors from my quilting tools to show several views of the Creeper at once.

Let's hope my grandson does not want an entire mob of Creepers. One was fun to crochet; it did not take that long. But I'd rather get back to my sewing. The mirror view gave me an idea. Maybe I should send him a pair of hinged mirrors like mine so he can create his own mob of Creepers. 💚

Further terminology update:
I just learned that the term mob in Minecraft does not necessarily mean a large violent group. Instead it stands for a "mobile non-player character". Specifically

Creepers are hostile mobs (mobile non-player characters) that spawn in dark places. Instead of attacking the player directly, they creep up on the player and explode, destroying blocks in the surrounding area and potentially hurting or killing the player if they are within the blast radius.

So in retrospect, one Creeper is enough as long as it is in blasting distance. Live and learn...

OKC Quilt Show

On July 16th, Frank and I went to Oklahoma to visit my daughter Robin, our son-in-law, and their two kids. We timed our visit to coincide with the Central Oklahoma Quilters Guild show. The show had 329 quilt entries and 22 vendors.

QUILTS
My daughter is a member of this guild. She had entered five quilts in the show: four she's made over the years and one I'd made for her and her husband as a belated wedding present. First off I will show those five quilts. My daughter's most recent creation was named Every Heart Beats True, completed in 2021.

The second and third quilt entries were ones my daughter had made for the nursery, one each for her daughter and for her son. The Winnie the Pooh themed one titled Rumbly in my Tumbly was for her daughter, shown at nearly 13 in front of her infant quilt. Robin put the final stitches on the binding of Rumbly in my Tumbly while in labor. A dinosaur themed one titled Isaiah Saurus was for her son. He came to the show, too, on the second day, but, alas, we have no photo of him in front of his infant quilt.

Robin's fourth entry was titled Slices of Sunset. I loved her combination of pinks, oranges, and purples.

My daughter surprised me with a special ribbon in honor of me to be placed on a quilt of my choosing.

I chose to put it on a quilt with no other ribbons so the maker would be surprised. My choice was Posh Penelope by Joyce Curtis. I loved all the colors and it inspired me to try out my own curved rulers by Sew Kind of Wonderful, a challenge that has be on my "to do" list for a while.

My daughter's fifth entry was a quilt I made for her for her wedding. Masquerade was made from mask fabric cut and assembled with the stack and whack method and the construction is detailed in my blog post for 10/16/2020. Robin was married in in May of 2011. Taking 9 ½ years to complete a quilt is not so bad, is it? It did sit squirreled away untouched for part of that time. My husband Frank and I are posed in front of Masquerader and he reminded me how during its construction I often referred to it as "The Quilt from Hell".

With 329 quilts in the show I could not show pictures of them all. I chose to limit myself to 5% or 16 quilts and state a reason why I selected each. Here are the remaining 10, in no particular order.

1) Blue Heron by Allison Vaccarro used the same stack and whack technique I used on Masquerade, with the added design feature of incorporating the hexagons around a central scenic panel. The way she blended the hexes with the panel in appropriate places around made for great transitions. Next time I have a panel that inspires me, I would like to try the same technique.

2) Hextravaganza by Frieda Grischkowski  used Tula pink fabrics, which I positively love. I could also appreciate the planning involved in the particular fabric placement. The name is way cool, too.

3) The unique color combination in Taste of Morocco by Donna Lemmons caught my eye and I could appreciate all the non-45° angles. (As a random note, this quilt and its maker seem to be fond of double consonants.) Taste of Morocco was a first time entry.

4) Crimson Christmas by Marsha Kirby, quilted by Jeremy Dickerson, had such crisp poinsettias I just had to capture it. The quilt is very striking, even more so by the strong color choices and 60° designs of Krista Moser.

5) This cosmic kitty by Frieda Gischkowski, aka Multiverse Cat 1,  made me smile. He seemed out of this world and the colorway and fabric choices supported the illusion.

6) The shapes and color choices selected by Karen Mott for Alhambra Rosette make for a strikingly stunning quilt. I am beginning to recognize in myself how I am drawn to quilts in solid colors yet I tend to sew predominantly in prints for myself. Self knowledge can grow from quilt shows.

7) Aha. In striking contrast to the previous quilt is solids, Dandelion Fine by Mary Miller is a celebration of prints. She was besotted with the Dandelion fabric as was I. I bought some of it in March of 2019 at the Sacramento Quilt, Craft, and Sewing Festival because it reminded me of a phrase in one of my son's  childhood books, I am a Bunny by Richard Scarry. "I blow the dandelion seeds into the air."

8) Zigzagging in October by Amy Stanley inspired me to another way to use the square in a square blocks I am fond of producing. It will showcase another use for my jelly roll creations when paired with a common background fabric. I have a jelly roll of polka dots and another of stripes. Both would work the way Amy Stanley designed her quilt. Zigzagging is fun to look at whether in a quilt or a slalom!

These two quilts are in my blog posts for 4/23/25 and 1/20/25 respectively.

These final two selections are quilts I would never attempt for myself. They are so labor intensive, especially when I refer to appliqué as "the A word".  Both quilts truly merit mentions.

9) Holiday House by Kathy Patty has no associated story. The quilter just loves holiday themes.

10)  Donna Lemmons used many different techniques to complete her quilt titled Christmas in Oklahoma. I am in awe of the joyful cacophony of everything Christmas.

I did not show all 329 quilts but I thought this 26 second video I took at the end when the quilts were being taken down might be fun to watch and show a few other quilts.

PURCHASES
In addition to the 329 quilts, the COQG show Symphony of Color also had 22 vendors. My daughter was in charge of securing vendors, signing contracts with them, and attending to the logistics of their set up and breakdown. It was a big job and I am so proud of her. Of course I had to buy stuff from these vendors.

Recently I had purchased a Lella Boutique pattern for a Frankenstein pillow. The vendor, Good with Sugar, had kits put together with fabric only in just the right combination of colors, especially those spot-on greens, so I picked up one kit. 

On the left of the next photo I bought the Quilted Projects for All Seasons book from Prairie Quilts. The funny story about that book is that I looked at it and put it back without buying it. I shopped at other vendors and came back to Prairie Quilts idly browsing some more. When I did not spot that book I got a clutchy feeling of, "Oh, no! I really wanted that book." The books had been merely rearranged and once I found it again, I bought it right then and there. Remember the song Big Yellow Taxi by Counting Crows? An excerpt from the lyrics is

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone?
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot

On the right in the same photo is a Coriander Quilts Wooly Stars sheep pattern I have been eyeing for some time since when I first saw it at the The Quilts by the Bay show in Pacific Grove this past May 2025. It came from the Good with Sugar booth.

 

My good intention for this show was to not buy much fabric. My stash is overflowing and my suitcase from travel could not tolerate a lot of extra weight. Ever noticed how heavy fabric is?  But being on a fabric diet is like being on a real diet. You eat around everything except what you really want. That is how I accumulated theses notions and tidbits.

Coasters came from Grana’s Front Porch Fabrics and ​Christmas zipper pulls from Good with Sugar. Parrot scissors came from Sherry Worley and silicone tools from Prairie Quilts.

Well, just like a food diet, you can eat around a bunch of stuff before caving and indulging in what you really want. Here are the fabrics I bought. From 2 Busy Beez in Edgewood, NM I bought three one yard pieces that coordinated. I could not pass up that lovely peacock focal print. And I really do not have a lot of floral prints. This was the largest of my fabric lapses.

From Grana’s Front Porch Fabrics I bought this 1¾ yd remnant for the remarkable price of $5. How could I pass that up? Remember, I really do not have a lot of floral prints plus this is a Robert Kaufman. 

From Among Friends (Topeka, Kansas), this fireworks fabric was too outstanding to pass up. I only have a yard but is it too pretty to cut apart so it will most likely become a backing for something patriotic ... or perhaps a tote bag ... or maybe pillows...

I have a horse lovin' granddaughter so this panel will be something for her.

Although I'd gone to the show Friday, I also went in the afternoon on Saturday, the second day of the show. My grandson went in the morning on Saturday. He and his other grandma had fun digging through three long troughs of fat quarters on a hunt of horse themed ones for his cousin. They found six.

The whole family enjoyed the show a great deal and it was special, all the more so, due to my daughter's heavy engagement in its success.