A little unicorn

A chibicorn. Or a unichibi. I don't know which. (In anime, "chibi" is sometimes used to described junior or small and cute versions of something. I first noticed it in the mid-90s US run of the dubbed-and-edited "Sailor Moon" cartoons).

Anyway. I made the unicorn from Issue 18 of "Simply Crochet". You can see a very tiny photo of it (upper right corner of the magazine) here for comparison. I made mine a lot differently; I did the mane fuller and did a different face.

Originally I had threatened to do a chibi version of Trixie from MLP, but when I got to Michael's I saw the yarn I ultimately used for the hair and decided just to go my own way and make up a unique unicorn using my own color scheme.

I played around with potential names in the My Little Pony mode, basing some of them on the yarn (I think it was called Aurora) and the colorscheme (Midnight) but none of them worked.

Then when I put the face on, as sometimes happens with toys, a name popped into my head.



Audrey. I know, that's not an MLP-esque name. And I know most people will relate "Audrey" as the human-eating plant from Little Shop of Horrors. (But actually I think first of the old Little Audrey cartoons - which were a staple of the indie tv channels when I was a kid. Little Audrey was kind of a Little Lulu knockoff. There were also rather ghoulish Little Audrey jokes (where something horrible happens to a person and "Little Audrey laughed and laughed..." because of some factor she thinks, in her twisted logic, is a mitigating factor). Audrey is also the name of Benson's girlfriend (I assume she's being developed as a girlfriend character on Regular Show...

And of course there's Audrey Hepburn, though I didn't think of that until just now.

Anyway. I went with a more-detailed face than the just-two-lock-washer-eyes-and-nostrils the original pattern had. The eyes are similar to, but simpler than (no pupils and simpler highlights) the eyes I've done on the other MLP styled amigurumi.

And the mane and tail are a lot fuller; I thought the original unicorn looked a little bald.



As you could see from the previous photo (perhaps better than this one - this one being taken in my phone nook), she's very small, perhaps about 6" tall. The mane and tail yarn have subtle silver highlights that just show up in that first picture. (one of the fun things about making toys: you can use whatever crazy novelty yarn you want, even one you might never consider for clothing).

The pattern itself is very basic; it only becomes recognizably a unicorn after the ears, horn, and mane and tail are applied. Before that, it could be pretty much any tetrapod.