Pictures coming later

I pushed last night (and stayed up later than I had planned), but I finished PFUDOR.

As I said, some of you will get that, but it stands for Pink Fluffy Unicorn Dancing On Rainbows, which is one of those silly little YouTube things:



Yes, it's incredibly silly, but sometimes a little silliness is good.

Flufflepuff (that's her name) is an odd character. She's completely fan-created, someone drew her for some reason, and she's taken on a life of her own. In some areas of fandom, her role.....well, it's not a very nice role. She winds up kind of abused by whoever her "owner" is.

(The idea behind fluffy ponies is that they're smaller (and fluffier) than regular ponies. And not very bright. I guess the original idea was that in the cloning process or whatever made them, something went wrong with brain development. I prefer to see them more as sort of the analog of cats or dogs in the Pony world - unable to speak, perhaps not fully self-aware, but certainly able to function (and able to be a smart aleck, occasionally))

There's also the Ask Flufflepuff tumblr, which contains some made-up canon about Flufflepuff (one of my favorites: Her Element of Harmony is tacos. If I could find a taco-shaped button, I'd consider making my Flufflepuff a magical element jewelry thing). In the Ask Flufflepuff world, her role seems to be more benign (none of the abuse she suffers in the so-called greentext stories), and it's suggested that in some way she's helping to reform Queen Chrysalis (with whom she usually hangs out) using her cuteness and fluffiness. (It's also more innocent than I guess some of the fan uses of her are, although there are some bits (Flufflepuff sticking her tongue in one of the holes in Chrysalis' leg) that could perhaps be taken in a non-innocent way)

Also, according to the tumblr, her usual sound is "pffftftpfpfffttff" (sort of like trying to spit a hair out of your mouth).


Again - it's silly, but sometimes I need silliness.


So I decided to make myself a Flufflepuff. This was a confluence of seeing the Breast Cancer Awareness Month Pink yarns at the JoAnn's, and also getting a copy of "Fifty Yards of Fun" - which is a Rebecca Danger pattern book for making small toys, mostly using 50 yards or so of worsted weight yarns. She gives five or six basic body shapes and then suggestions on customizing them to make whatever creature you like.


I modified the ball pattern for Flufflepuff; I did the increases and decreases as written but made the middle section "longer" to get an oval body. And I knit it with three strands of yarn held together (Bernat Simply Soft, Boa, and Fun Fur). The head was a smaller version of the ball (originally I was going to just use the oval body with a nose coming off it, but I decided she needed a head). There's a snout based on a sock toe, and feet that are just tubes closed at one end. And the ears are triangles knit flat, as is the "front ruff."


I also added a smaller, flatter "ball" to her forehead for a forelock, and made another and put it on the rump for a tail. Flufflepuff doesn't actually have a tail in most drawings but I felt she needed one.


I also gave her a felt unicorn horn. Flufflepuff is not ACTUALLY a unicorn; she made her horn by rolling up a piece of paper and sticking it on her head. (I find all those silly little touches really endearing).


My camera has to charge up (and all of that is at home, anyway), so pictures will come later.


My one real dissatisfaction with the project is that she's the wrong shade of pink. The "real" Flufflepuff is a pale pink and the yarns I wound up picking are more of a raspberry pink. (Well, you do your best with what's available. I could have gone with a paler Fun Fur or Simply Soft but I think that was the only pink "Boa" they had). Also the nose shape is a little wrong (too flat) but it's not too bad, not bad enough for me to want to change it. I can mostly overlook the wrongness of the color - unlike some fans, I can deal with stuff not being show (or, I guess in this case, fanart) perfect.