Ryder from Paw Patrol

When Nipiti, a fantastic crochet pattern designer, put out a call for testers to make her newest pattern, I jumped at the chance.  She had designed a Ryder doll!!!  Ryder is the human who works with the puppies on the animated TV show, Paw Patrol, on the Nick Jr. channel.  Knowing that my Petey and Charbunkle love Paw Patrol, I knew I had to give Ryder a try!

Isn't his hair hilariously awesome?!?  So funny and so perfect.  Here's what Ryder looks like in the TV show:

Nipiti did a fantastic job!  You can buy the pattern on Ravelry (and Etsy, too, I believe), and as one of the testers, I can vouch for the perfection of the pattern.

For some reason, my Ryder's head turned out a bit triangular, but that was definitely user error on my part.  Nipiti and the other two testers had no problem giving Ryder an adorable little jaw line.  It might have been my yarn and it might have been the fact that I ran out of my normal poly-fil and was using some of my friend's which was slightly different, I think.  When you run out of craft supplies while on vacation at a lake in Arkansas, you make do....  Thanks for saving me, Rhetta!!

Because I was testing the pattern for the wonderful Nipiti, I took a few in-progress pictures, which I don't do very often (other than sending blurry cell phone pictures to my mom and sister).  Here's a peek behind the curtain for you!

I weighed my yarn before and after crocheting Ryder so that we could estimate how much I used.

Progress!  Isn't that adorable how if you lift up Ryder's pants cuff, you can see a little flash of ankle?

Slightly blurry progress picture I took in Arkansas while on vacation....  Our iPad is having camera focusing issues.

Hahahahahaha, Ryder's hair in the early stages looked a bit like Edward Scissorhands' hair (according to Niki)!

I took this picture to show how huge my Ryder turned out.  Nipiti typically designs her amigurumis using thinner yarn, but I am addicted to using Red Heart worsted weight, so when I test patterns for her, my finished objects are much bigger!  Sonia wanted to keep Ryder for herself, but I made him with her cousin, Petey, in mind.  Ryder needs to go to Michigan to join Charlotte's Skye Paw Patrol puppy!

If you have a little buddy who is a Paw Patrol fan, I highly recommend this pattern!  You will have a great time making it.

Charlotte's Puppy "Skye" from Paw Patrol

Happy, happy 6th birthday to my beloved niece (Niki's daughter), Charlotte!  In honor of Charbunkle's birthday, I crocheted her this puppy named "Skye" from the Nick Jr. show "Paw Patrol".

Back when Charlotte & Peter first started watching that show last year, I looked around on the interwebs for Paw Patrol crocheted goodies, but I didn't find much because the show was still a bit too new.  Since then, I've seen a few Paw Patrol amigurumis float across my Pinterest boards, but none turned my head like this pattern by Nipiti, which I bought on Etsy.

As usual, I used Red Heart Super Saver and Red Heart With Love yarns, but I also mixed in some beige Caron One Pound yarn that I've had in my stash for a while.  Actually, that yarn might have come from Niki when she handed down all of her worsted weight stash to me!

And of course, I used my beloved safety eyes.  The pattern calls for the kind of safety eyes that have irises around the pupils, and the pattern author even used the appropriate pink-irised eyes to match the animated version of Skye, but they look a bit too albino to me, so I went with plain old black.

I love the cute little tail!

Hopefully Skye arrives in the mail today and breaks my streak of always sending late birthday gifts!

The hat and goggles are so much fun.  Nipiti wrote a really great pattern.  I highly recommend it!

Happy birthday to my favorite (ok, ONLY) niece in the entire world! Your Auntie Ernie loves you so much and wishes she could be there to celebrate with you.  Enjoy the rest of your visit with Grandma JoJo!