Burdened with glorious purpose, my Crochet Loki is finished...!

 

I don't really know if this counts as Amigurumi or not but I've just spent the last couple of days of spare time crocheting Loki from the truly awesome Disney + / Marvel series. The show is just amazing, and I wanted to have a go at making my daughter another whacky creation to go with the rest that are cluttering up her room. 

There are a LOT of Loki patterns out there, some are really great and go for a more realistic interpretation of the mischievous being himself. 

Others are a bit too vague. Some crocheters (no criticism intended) settle into a specific type of shape for their characters and just swap bits in and out to make it vaguely look like what it's supposed to. So I struggled to find a single pattern I liked and decided to free-form this one. 

Free-Form Crochet is relaxing. You're not concerning yourself with stitch or row counts, you're just winging it and the results are a mix of "Oh god I wish I hadn't done it that way" and "happy accidents" that bring your crochet model to life. 

All my models start with a head so I started with the usual 6 stitch magic circle, building up the rows to get the basic head shape. For the chin I knew I'd have to do some drastic row reductions to get it to a proper Tom Hiddleston-like point. I didn't actually intend for the chin to be the chin at first (it was the neck originally!) but I began to realise my character looked like his entire jaw was missing without it so neck became chin, and with a bit of tactical stuffing and shaping, it looked OK. Luckily this time I remember to put the safety eyes in place while making the head (I nearly always forget and end up having to glue them in later on). 

Then the hair. Oh god the hair. I have one technique for hair which is quite long-winded and painstaking. Basically I cut short sections of yarn, pull them through the stitch line along the hairline in a loop, then pull the loose ends through. If you do this row by row, making the front strands slightly long (for Loki-style hair) and then working the rows underneath in shorter lengths, it builds up the layers really nicely and effectively. The only problem is that for the model above I ended up having to do this about 60 times! ARGHHHHH!!!

The nose and ears were added in last of all and were just half magic circles of about 4 stitches. I'm always in two minds whether to add facial features to Amigurumi models, purists never add noses or ears and sometimes that works out really well. For Loki though, his nose and ears are pretty prominent, and I think it makes my version look a bit more like who it's supposed to be!

As you can see from the Work in Progress image from the left, he would've looked a bit weird without those additions (the helmet was something I knocked up using knitted i-Cord stitches for the horns, and a crocheted top and sides for the helmet itself). 

Eventually the head was finished and I now had a bit of a decision to make about the body. Loki has many different guises so I put a quick poll out on Twitter to ask folk what they would like to see, body wise. The choices were "Classic Loki" (ie his resplendent golden age look with a crazy cape, the helmet and a weird jumpsuit), TVA "Crap Shirt" Loki (the choice I eventually went with) - this is more akin to his TV look. Or "President Loki" (from the comics, briefly seen in the show, a sort of bright green business suit with all his campaign paraphernalia). 

Once the Twitter folk had their say, I started to think about how to crochet the body shape. Magic rings are

pretty much where I start out with bodies as well as heads, so I got some fairly drab grey yarn and began to build up the shoulders, leaving some holes for the arms, and down to the belt and legs. 

The legs are the only bit I was a bit annoyed with in the finished product, they're a bit too weedy so if I'm ever crazy enough to make another one of these (and I'm sorely tempted to do one just so I can write out the pattern) I'd make the legs entirely separate. 

Then the arms. Again, most Amigurumi models opt for fairly shapeless hands and arms that just look like sausages, but I thought as my Loki was bordering between Amigurumi and 'realistic' model, I wanted more expressive hands. These again started out as magic circles (where on earth would I be without those!) with some chain stitches doubled back on themselves for the thumbs and fingers. I really, really like how these turned out in the end but like most happy accidents, I wasn't sure they'd ever work!

The hands were then sewn into a pair of flared sleeves, then in turn sewn into the holes I'd left in the body. Again if I'm working on a better pattern / better version for these I'd probably crochet the holes up into proper arms rather than making them separately then stitching them in but I'm still a beginner really, and still learning the best techniques to use in each case. 

The character was really beginning to come together now. Boots were added to the legs and I began to make the collar and the shirt front with tie (I cheated with the shirt front and the tie, knitting instead of crocheting to give a slightly smoother and tighter surface. Again if I was doing an improved version of this I would probably have made a separate jacket and worked the body in white wool, but it looked OK in the end!)

A few last minute embellishments and the addition of a very quickly crocheted Miss Minutes, and my model was complete. Overall I'd say this took around 3-4 hours (two of which were that damned hair!) but I'm really pleased with the result. 

If you've got any questions or want to see me post that pattern, I'll have a go at answering them.