Snugglebugs

One morning, not too long ago, I awoke to a peculiar message waiting for me upon my crafting desk.  Labeled “directions”, there lay before me two gorgeously illustrated (for a four-year-old, anyway) pictures of a very specific toy he wanted me to crochet for him: a Snugglebug.

For some background, my boys have been really into bugs lately.  In fact, their love of bugs is so well known to friends and family that we somehow have found ourselves recipients to tons of fake, plastic bugs that people come upon in dollar stores and pick up for us.  Bugs go great with our homeschool curriculum, and I love to encourage their exploration of the natural world, but I will say that there’s something a bit disconcerting waking up in the middle of the night with a (plastic) spider staring you in the face.  Not quite as cool.

The directions.

But I digress.  My boys are affectionate and loving, and I have referred to them often as my “little snugglebugs”.  Unfortunately, after paging through his bug dictionary, my youngest concluded that he could not find a Snugglebug, and would therefore have to design one of his own.  And that leads me back to the bright sunny morning that I woke up to find this in front of me.

What to do?  Well, make him a Snugglebug, of course!

I found the perfect pattern on Ravelry – free – and within just a couple of hours had made up two little Snugglebugs (because if you have two children, you know that making one toy for one child never really goes over too well).  The first I made explicitly following directions, and the other I took some liberty with, knowing that as long as the colors were black and white (my eldest’s favorites right now), that it would be accepted.

Well, accepted these little guys were – and not just accepted, but fawned over, shrieked over, and cuddled like crazy.  They were tucked into pockets and swaddled up into little blankets.  They were flown all over the yard and held close to their hearts.

… close to their hearts.  Isn’t that what creating is all about?  It’s the moments like these that make all my efforts really worth it.

If you want to crochet your own Snugglebug, the pattern is free here on Ravelry, and my project page is here.  Now I’m off to snuggle my own little Snugglebugs.

~Mellie ★