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.

January Snowmen and Snowflakes

The January Pieceful Patchwork banner kit from Shabby Fabrics featured two jaunty snowmen who sport top hats with coal eyes and a carrot nose along with two snowflakes that are simpler to assembly than their intricate demeanor would imply. For some inexplicable reason, I have a soft spot for fabrics with words, so I am pleased with the snowmen background. When I cut out the fabric from this kit, I paid little attention to fabric print details. When I pieced the snowmen, I did make sure the writing faced the same direction, but I did not fussy cut anything in particular. 

I used my Melamine Trays, Alphabitties and Clover Wonder Clips to organize the cut pieces for the snowmen and snowflakes.

Adding the carrot and coal facial features was very easy. They were pre-cut by a laser and had a pre-fused backing. They punched out easily from the sheet they were on. After using a light box to help establish the positioning, I ironed on the features seamlessly. Per the advice on the instructional video, I waited to add appliqué stitching on the carrot nose and on the coal eyes and mouth until after the surrounding background pieces had been added. Waiting avoided the chance that the appliqué could distort the face piece. I was careful to use a narrow satin stitch width and a not too-too small stitch length and both faces remained smooth and did not pucker.

After assembling the snowflakes I did note that the nordic stripe print happened to fall centered in some spokes and not centered in others. Had I noticed this earlier I would have fussy cut that print. The kits from Shabby Fabrics are generous in their fabrics, allowing for occasional mistakes, so there was sufficient fabric to have fussy cut. I just did not notice until the snowflakes were assembled. Here the two snowflakes are side by side. The one on the left has centered stars on the horizontal spokes and on the lower vertical spoke, but the upper vertical spoke has non-centered stars. The reverse is true of the snowflake on the right, centered on only one spoke and non-centered on the other three spokes. It occurred to me I could switch the two top halves and have each snowflake be self-consistent.

I unstitched the two top halves and interchanged them; here are the two revised snowflakes. Each is axisymmetric unto itself but they are different from each other. Anyway, isn't it theorized that no two snowflakes are exactly alike?

Here is the January banner assembled and sandwiched with sashing and borders. Next up is the FMQ. I had inspiration for the snowflakes but I am still contemplating FMQ on the snowmen.