Yet another pony

Yeah, the "crochet project" I alluded to seeking out two more balls of blue yarn for was Yet. Another. Pony.

I can't quite explain my obsession with making these, other than that they're kind of fun, and the finished product is extremely satisfying. I would have ADORED toys like these when I was a child - I probably wouldn't have gone for the so-called "brushable" ponies, which are molded vinyl with that saran-y doll-hair on them. I just wasn't big into brushing things (not even my own hair) when I was a kid, and I think I would have found the plastic ponies sort of unyielding and not-cuddly.

But my crocheted ponies are. And they're a nice size - big enough to have a bit of weight in your hand, but small enough that they don't take forever (FOREVER!) to do.

As always, the pattern is based on the "Friends Forever Fawn" from the Elisabeth Doherty amigurumi book. This is the fifth iteration I've made of the pattern (I definitely thing I've got my money's worth, and more, from that book - I've made the little mouse in it as well, which is super-cute, and I plan someday to make the dachshund. And flipping through before starting the current pony, I noticed the cookie and cupcake (which could be modified to be MUFFINS!) patterns, and I might do those sometime).

Anyway. The new pony. Is Princess Luna. For those who don't watch the show - the rulers (possibly goddesses, it's not entirely clear) are a couple of winged unicorn sisters. Celestia rules the day, Luna rules the night. Except, in the first episode, Luna gets all hissy-fitty because the ponies aren't awake during HER time to rule...so she turns evil and becomes the Mare in the Moon (because Celestia banishes her there). However - as is often the case in these children's shows - she's not really TRULY evil, she just went kind of wrong and apparently she repents and is welcomed back into the family. (The second-season villain, Discord, could arguably be said to be irredeemably evil - the only thing to be done with him was to turn him back to stone).

Luna has become somewhat of a fan-favorite. I think part of this is her subsidiary-character status: it's possible for fans to invent whatever backstory/additional story they want for her (kind of like Derpy). But also, Luna tends to be a bit emo, which I think appeals to a lot of people. (There's a lot of "sad Luna" fanart out there, some of it a bit touching - like "Free Luna, showing her in a box out on the street. (Seriously, if you saw that, could you pass it by?)

Luna comes in a couple of different phenologies. There's the crazy Mare in the Moon Luna, who wears armor and is in her "evil or at least just very very misunderstood" form. Then there's the Little Princess Luna, who looks like a lot of the fanart and is the Luna I made...her hair is different from Season Two Luna, where it's more veil-like. (I thought the veil-mane was cool, but decided that for what is essentially a toy, it would require bridal tulle, which tends to be somewhat fragile and hard to work with - also, I'm not sure how easy it would be to find navy blue tulle).

Anyway, here's my Luna.



I'm REALLY proud of how her face (especially her eyes) turned out. I think this is the best pony face I've done yet - I think that was partly because I had a picture of her to work off of (rather than just my memory) but also because I had the "good" kind of felt - my Valentine's Day present to myself was to buy a whole set (50 9x12 sheets) of all different colors of the rayon-wool felt that Amazon has. (It was quite expensive but it was worth it to me - not just for the pleasure of having that big stack of all those colors, but also it's DEFINITELY better quality than your typical craft-store felt, which is all acrylic and tends to have thick-and-thin places, and which tears more easily and is harder to cut well into small shapes).

She's more elaborate than either of the other ponies I made - for one thing, she's an "alicorn," which means she needed both a unicorn horn (which I just kind of scrumbled up - I think I started with a ring of 3 stitches, then after a few round increased to 4, then after a few more rounds, increased to five) and wings (I made her wings bigger - more "feathers" and wider - than either of the other ones I did - she's supposedly a bit larger and older (well, at least, in terms of years-of-existence; she's supposedly over 1000 years old, even though she acts like a teenager at times).

Also, her "cutie mark" is more complex - a black "cloud" (or night sky) with a crescent moon.



I did this one on both sides. I thought it would look weird to only do one side (I only did one side with both the others I made). Again, having the better-quality felt made a lot of difference.

I also had to give her her little tiara thingy. I actually forgot that last night and had to add it this afternoon. (You can kind of see it in the shot of her face).

Luna is funny because on the show, she's a little bit socially awkward (Well, I suppose anyone would be, after living on the moon for 1000 years). She talks too loudly (the Traditional Royal Canterlot Voice, which is like the spoken equivalent of ALL CAPS) and speaks in a weird, mock-Shakespearean dialect ("thou" and "thy" and the -eth endings on some verbs).

She also says things like "Huzzah." And "The fun has been doubled!"

Well, in this case, the fun has been tripled:



(you can see her tiara thing better there, and also the bib/collar that she wears.)

And I couldn't resist - remembering my childhood - setting up a little tea party with these three. I don't have a toy tea set (I should maybe retrieve one of the ones I still have packed away at my parents' house), so I used a set of tiny Korean teacups I found at an antique shop here. (I occasionally use one myself).



Yes, I left the scarves on Fluttershy and Derpy. It's still cold here. (In fact, maybe Luna needs a pair of socks (There's a fanart fad of drawing the ponies wearing socks. No, I don't get it either, other than that it's kind of cute).

I don't know. I recognize this is one of the ways that I'm weird and not-a-grownup but it makes me happy. I suppose it's a less harmful thing than some ways some people have of making themselves happy....