An Elementary Christmas Present

Over a year ago, my sister flipped me a link on Pinterest with the words, "Dude. I want this."

"This" being a crocheted Sherlock Holmes amigurumi, designed by Vilma Ilona. The doll, of course, is based on the character played by Benedict Cumberbatch in BBC's Sherlock, a show that (if her Pinterest board is any indication) my sister is obsessed with. She told me she wanted the doll to keep on her desk at work, so that she "could use it to talk to people with."

Yeah, I don't know either.

I dutifully added the doll to my project list, and here is my version of it. Most of the Ravelry members who made it seemed to use worsted or even bulky weight yarn for this project. I used sock yarn for it, because I didn't have the right colours in any other weight. I worked with two strands so that it wouldn't turn out too small, and I think the finished doll was just an inch or so bigger than the designer's sample was (I forgot to measure the finished doll, but I'd estimate that it is about 8" long). My version has some shortcomings. I didn't quite have the right gray -- Sherlock's overcoat is supposed to be a charcoal gray rather than this medium gray, but I thought it was close enough. I also didn't get the hair right -- this doll's hair looks more like eighties-era Kirk Cameron than current day Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes -- but again I thought it would do.

I can't say I enjoyed making it. I don't like crocheting and I don't like working on such a small scale, and the combination of the two drove me right up the wall. This little project took weeks because I simply couldn't keep myself at it. It was a huge relief to finally finish it in time, on Christmas Eve, and then to wrap it up with the things I'd bought to go with it and put it under the tree. Originally I'd planned for this doll to be a stocking stuffer, but then it occurred to me to expand on the concept and to make my sister's present a throughgoing fangirl kit. I bought first the notebook folder, and then the official Sherlock calendar with accompanying vinyl sticker that appears in the photo at the top of this post. I made sure to get a notebook folder with the "Get out. I need to go to my mind palace," quote on it because it's the sort of thing my sister would say. And judging from the way she chortled as she took each separate item from the package, the fangirl kit idea was very much on point.