tracy

Here's a toy I made but didn't design. Well, I wrote the pattern but didn't do the initial design. Strange! A while back, my friend Michele Scanlon asked me to knit a toy based on a character her husband Dan created for a movie he's making. Dan's a super talented story artist at Pixar who's making this film in his free time - amazing. When I saw the character, whose name is Tracy, I knew he'd be a challenge (how to do a 'fro?) but a fun one. And so it was. Here's the completed toy. In Dan's movie, Tracy is, apparently, a 70s kids' show host - hence the 'fro, the 'stache, the jumpsuit, the rainbow. The hair was probably the hardest thing for me to figure out - how to create that spherical 'do? I was tempted to do some kind of loopy thing with the yarn, like a shag rug or something, but it's all about the simple, clean shapes for me, so I made a sphere, stuffed it lightly, and smooshed it on his head. It was very weird for me to do a toy from someone else's design, but it was truly a blast. I couldn't stop giggling once he was done - that hair! That eyebrow!

Michele and Dan are a fabulous couple who actually just finished a comic book about undergarments called "Unmentionables." They're going to have a booth at the San Diego Comic Con. Edited to add: Here's the official site for their comic!