Christmas keychains – SKZoo

Let me take a break from posting about my backlog of book boxes to tell you about all the things I made for Christmas presents this past holiday season.

My fingers had been itching to start making something to give to my nieces and nephews for Christmas for a while, but I had zero inspiration. As the weeks flew by, the chance that I would even have time to make something became smaller and smaller. Until suddenly, at the end of November, inspiration struck.

I was doing some research on the Korean boyband that my oldest godchild is a big fan of and that we’re going to see together this summer. The band is called Stray Kids and consists of eight members. I tried listening to their music, but yeah, it’s not really my thing, lol.
Anyway, in my research on the group I also stumbled across the term SKZoo and learned that this is a project where each member is assigned their own character. Illustrations showed that they were all very cute looking animals. Of course I saw creative potential in that!

A bit more online research and I found lots of people who had crocheted some version of these cute creatures, from big stuffed animals to boy dolls with their animal as a costume. All really nice ideas, but a lot of work for the last-not-even month before Christmas.
And then YouTube presented me with a video by Canal Crochet, a Spanish crocheter who shares her patterns via YouTube. In that video she didn’t make full SKZoo dolls, but only made the head, which she then made into a beaded key chain. Oh yeah, that still seemed doable!

I got my box of Catania cotton from the attic and discovered that I had all the colours I needed, or a good approximation of them, in stock, so I could get started right away!
I still had to buy some other things, but none I needed right away (not sponsored #nospon):

• Textile glue to glue felt: found a tube from Güterman and bought it at a local shop
• Key rings: I still had some metal ones lying around here, but I had fallen in love with the brightly coloured plastic ones from the video. After some searching for the right search term, I finally found very similar ones on Amazon
• Beads: I had coloured beads at home, but not letter beads, so I ordered them together with the key rings on Amazon

I started with this WolfChan belonging to Stray Kid Bang Chan.
Through the Canal Crochet video, I found her blog, which made deciphering the Spanish a little easier than the spoken text.

I mainly followed her pattern for the head, but added a few extra rounds, because I thought her head was a little too round compared to the illustrated figure.
I also didn’t think the ears quite fit, more like a rabbit than the pointed ears of a wolf. So I adjusted those too by starting with a magic ring of 4 instead of 6, to be able to get a point at the top.
I glued some felt on the inside of the ears, but for the nose I chose to crochet it and sew it on. The rest of the face I also embroidered.

And then it was finished, I thought… No, the lock of hair is missing, which I kind of found to be an important identifying element. So, for this I experimented a bit with chains, single crochets and double crochets until I got something that I could sew on the head in the right shape.

For attaching the key ring and the beads I watched the Canal Crochet video again. Unfortunately I discovered that the cotton yarn I was using was a bit too thick to easily thread through the beads. Fortunately I have a well-stocked attic and was able to unearth a number of different colours of finer cotton. This did the trick.

Animal one finished and not half bad looking in my opinion!

On to number 2, or Leebit belonging to Stray Kid Lee Know.

My original plan was to crochet again via the blog of Canal Crochet, but while I was watching the video to attach the keychain to the wolf, YouTube presented me with the video of another Spanish-speaking maker, Amis Tejiendo Momentos. Oh lalala, also very cool stuff! And yes, I thought her creations were a bit closer to the illustrations and looked a bit cuter. From that moment on, my animals became a hybrid of the patterns of these two makers, with the occasional Charlotte sauce added.

For this mischievous bunny I crocheted the head according to the video of Amis Tejiendo Momentos (ATM) and the ears like Canal Crochet (CC) with some extra improvised shaping.
For the inner ears I again cut and glued pieces of felt, but for the eyes I found felt a bit too awkward to be able to cut a nice round shape out of. That is why I crocheted the eyes with the finest cotton, just a magic ring of 6. I embroidered all other details in white and black, also with the finest cotton.
For the attachement of the key ring and beadsI used the same technique as the one learned for the wolf through CC’s video.

Animal number three was this Dwaekki belonging to Stray Kid Changbin, which is a hybrid between a pig and a rabbit.

I don’t know what went wrong with the crocheting here, but I couldn’t get anything symmetrical at all. Maybe my hands were starting to feel tired?
Anyway, thanks to the addition of a makeshift hairpiece and well-placed eyes, nose and mouth, I managed to make him look more like he’s smirking than oddly proportioned or crooked.

Jiniret belonging to Stray Kid Hyunjin was next. I originally thought this was a kitten, but apparently it’s a ferret. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been looking at them so much, but I’m starting to see more and more the resemblance between each critter and their human counterparts, lol.

To crochet this one, I think I followed the ATM video completely. Only the eyes I crocheted à l’improviste, trying to make them oval rather than round. This worked, but after I sewed them onto the head, this is not really visible anymore.
For the inner ear, as with all the other animals with different coloured inner ears, I used felt and fabric glue. The inner ears ended up being the only places I used the fabric glue, as for all the other details I decided to use needle and thread for attachment.
By the way, I learned that the easiest way to get the glue from the tube onto the felt is with a toothpick and not with a brush. The toothpick also helps to potition the piece of felt with glue nicely on the crocheted piece.

HANQOUKKA belonging to Stray Kid Han is not a beaver, as I first thought, but a squirrel.

I made this one as a hybrid between CC & ATM for a result that I thought fit best.
I crocheted the nose again like the wolf’s and improvised the eyes with the finest cotton. The rest of the face and the prominent tooth were embroidered with the finest cotton in either black or white.

Bbokkari belonging to Stray Kid Felix is a little chick, which I can remember by thinking bok bok bok, lol.

I think I made this one completely without a pattern, but just started crocheting to get the right shapes. The head could have been a bit more oval in width, but with all the additional details, including the improvised locks of hair, it comes pretty close to the drawing, I think.

For PuppyM belonging to Stray Kid Seungmin, I turned to ATM’s videos again for the head and ear shapes. I crocheted the eyes myself, as well as the lock of hair.

And finally, last but not least, FoxI.NY belonging to Stray Kid I.N., which I crocheted entirely after the ATM model.
At this stage I was so happy to see that I didn’t have to crochet eyes or hair locks anymore, and this one only consisted of the head, ears and snout.

With the finest cotton you can really crochet small and detailed things, like very fine eyes. And I’m really glad I went that route and didn’t start fiddling with felt and glue, but my hands were not such a fan of the fine, small crochet work after a while, despite the crochet hook with ergonomic grip.
Now, in general my hands were a bit angry with me, because of all that crochet and sewing in such a short time. My two thumbs in particular were nagging and I did sit on the couch with an ice pack a few times in the evening. Ouch, this makes me fear the future a little bit.

But hey, I’m not a quitter and even after I finished these eight, I still didn’t think of stopping. Because yes, my eldest niece is a big fan of this Korean boy band, and maybe her oldest sister too, but what about the rest? Maybe they wouldn’t like this at all? Okay, in the worst case they could remove the chain with the letter beads and then the keychain would just be a little animal head, but I couldn’t help doubting my decision to make these. Mostly also because by then I was sold on another idea. Yeah, first I’m cracking my head for months trying to think of something I could make as gifts, and then at the last moment I almost have too many ideas. *sigh*
But anyway,I’ll elaborate on the sequel later!

Back to the eight SKZoo animals, which I am quite proud of. I also think the combination with the beads and the colourful key ring is so cool! I can’t immediately choose a favorite from these eight. I had a lot of fun making all of them, even though I overdid myself a bit by wanting to do it all in such a short time. I always underestimate how many hours go into such things and yes, before you ask, I didn’t time it here either. I suspect several dozens, maybe an average of 7 hours of work per keychain?

Do you have a favorite?

Cheers,
Charlotte