This week’s plush is Salandit! I think my standard small size is getting bigger, but it’s not really an issue.

There’s much to like in salandit’s design; it has a nice pointed snout, a squiggly tail, and two neck flaps. The hands and feet help bring all my favourite elements together.

As usual, I thought it was going to be straightforward, and a break from the more complicated plush that I’ve been getting into. While it was no Reshiram, there were still a couple elements that I had to think about.

For the head I decided on an open mouth, because the closed mouth didn’t show off the jagged maw so well. I think for next time, I would join the jaws together sooner; there was a bit of a hole that I ended up sewing together around the neck.

The squiggly tail was my favourite element to make for this plush; it put the off-setting technique to great use for this one! Again, combining a set of increases with an equivalent amount of decreases (within the same round) allow the piece to form a noticeable jog in the structure while the thickness remains the same. It’s strange to think that I have been using this method for only about a month – now I see an application for it in almost every new project I work on.

Unexpectedly, the hands took a couple tries to get it right; three fingers gather pretty well into one spot, but for some reason, the fourth finger makes it even harder to bunch them together. I thought I could get away with chaining and crocheting alone, but it ended up looking more rectangular instead of triangular.

To fix this, I used the magic ring; instead of pulling it at the beginning, I left it open as an anchor for all the fingers to be chained to. The feet followed the same sort of technique, only the toes were made to be longer. My only regret about the magic ring is that I didn’t learn it sooner; I didn’t think it had more uses than making the round neater! Makes me wonder if I need to learn more crochet techniques.

Come to think of it, looking back at this year so far, I’ve made a ton of pokemon amigurumi! I didn’t think I would improve over these months, or even pick up new techniques along the way. I guess it’s never too late to pick up back where you left off – it seems like a distant memory that I had been relatively inactive for the past few years. I hope I can keep it up, because I have a whole list of pokemon I’d like to make.

Anyways, here are the final results:

Thanks for reading! Later this week, I am posting a vote on my Instagram for the next plush.