Sackboy - or "How I learned to stop worrying about cheating when knitting stuff!"

 

You would think that making a Sackboy Amigurumi would be the easiest thing in the world, wouldn't you? I mean look at him, he's just a glorified stick figure with no complex anatomy - but still a readily identifiable character if you love gaming, and have owned a Playstation console over the last 3 generations. 

I fell in love with Little Big Planet on the PS3 from the moment I saw the first pre-release trailers for it. It felt like a real innovation at the time, a game that was more than a game - a game that allowed you to MAKE your own games, and since then Media Molecule have gone on to bigger and better things with many versions of Little Big Planet and even a dedicated platformer riffing on the whole Sackboy world. 

So making one started out with me knitting 20 rows of knit / purl, then stitching up one side to make a cylinder shape. The important thing about Sackboy when you look at him is that he's definitely knitted (or at least the 3D model of Sackboy contains knitted rows of stitches rather than crochet in the round). So knitting him flat was a breeze (I guess if you had round needles you could do a nice seamless knit in the round for 20 stitches but I don't have round needles that small. 

I used Stylecraft Chunky in chocolate brown throughout. 

So once I had my cylinder, I decided to cheat a bit. Knitting a circle (to top off the head) always looks really scruffy so instead I crocheted the top of his head in the round, starting with a magic circle then expanding that up to 20 stitches with increases until it fitted the top of his cylindrical head perfectly. 

Add a couple of toy eyes, stuff well and then do another magic circle to seal off the bottom of the head. 

PERFECT!

Next the body. This time I made it slightly narrower than the head, topping out at 18 stitches cast on, worked for about 5-6 inches to make another cylinder. 

This time to get the sort of pointy sausage shape of his body I didn't crochet toppers for the sausage shape, I just did a bit of drawstring stitch on either end, stuffing the body before sealing off the ends. 

I then sewed the body to the head. 

With the arms, I cast on 12 stitches, knit / purl for about 3 inches in length. 

At the top end I sewed the end closed, then stuffed the arm. For the hands I again cheated a bit, crocheting in the round but alternating between chaining 4 stitches for each finger, missing a stitch then continuing around the hand (I wasn't super happy with how the hands turned out but I guess at least they look like Sackboy hands). 

Did the same for the other arm and sewed these fairly high up at the top of the body on the sides. So now Sackboy was almost complete. 

The legs were again knitted, 12 cast on stitches - only this time I sewed the top edge with a drawstring stitch (to make the top end pointy) then crocheted small rounds for the bottoms of his feet (this also has the added advantage of meaning that the figure will stand up, as long as you've stuffed him well!)

Once I'd tidied up the sewing a bit, the model was complete! Hooray!

There is something missing though...Our poor Sackboy is missing his zipper (pretty much the clearest identifying characteristic of a Sackboy) and could probably do with a mouth as well. 

For a first attempt at knitting combined with crocheting though I think it looks pretty good, the proportions are OK, the hands definitely need work though but they're not that bad. In essence he's recognisable as Sackboy and that's the main thing. 

I still feel a bit cheaty for combining knitting and crochet but hey, if you can do both, why the heck not!