I am Groot!

This weekend, my sweet little baby turns 14!  That’s years!  Human years!  I have no idea how this happened.  It seems like just last week he was burping down my back.  (He was such a little angel baby!)

Anyway, yeah, I’m not sure how he got to be 14, but he is.  In addition to the birthday coming up this weekend, he got his braces off earlier this week!  That was the end of Stage 2 (they do two stages of orthodontia now, the first around age 7-9 and the second around 12 or so, once the kid has all their teeth), so assuming he wears his retainers, he shouldn’t have to go through that again.  He’s got a week of nothing in his mouth while they make his retainers - and he’s really celebrating this week!

Obviously, for one of his birthday gifts I wanted to make him something and I decided that a Baby Groot was just what he needed.  I didn’t have a spare pot, so I weighted the bottom with some washers and some sort of metal thing I found in Mickael’s tool box (I checked first, he didn’t know what it was either, but it was heavy).  I wanted Baby Groot to stand up!  I mostly stuck to the pattern, except the arms - I couldn’t get it to work to crochet such a tiny tube.  I think it has something to do with the way I hold the hook and my work - I think I hold it more like a knitter than a crocheter.  After a couple of attempts, I grabbed some double points and knit I-cord for the arms.  Then I crocheted the fingers off of the live stitches at the ends of the I-cords.  I have no idea how I did it.  I kind of made it up as I went along, but it worked, and Groot is kind of bumpy and texture-y anyway, so I’m not too worried about it.  The only other change I made was to only add one leaf.  The pattern has several and they’re really cute, but after making the one, I thought it looked SO.  SUPER.  CUTE.  I just stopped.  If Caleb wants more leaves I’ll add them, but it’s his choice.

Here’s a link to my project page if you’re curious for more details.  If you’re thinking you might want a Baby Groot of your own (or you want to make one for someone else), he worked up pretty quickly.  I spent an afternoon and evening working on him and that included digging around for something to weight him with and trying to find pipe cleaners (I never did, I used floral wire instead).

I can’t wait to give Caleb his very own Baby Groot!