All Those In Favor, Vote Eye

In the comments of my previous crochet project post, @flowertron linked to a video that showed a crochet technique for diagonal color changes. It's actually two different techniques, one for each side: the first one is about having the top loop of a single crochet stitch be a different color from the body of the stitch, and the second one is about getting an extra loop in a stitch that helps conceal some show-through. I wasn't sure I completely followed the instructions (the youtuber moves her hook very differently than I do when I crochet, so it was hard for me to completely understand what she was doing), but that idea of the top loop being a different color seemed significant to me. A bit later it occurred to me that that technique would be really good for color bock transitions, such as between the shirt and pants of a character. Normally when I do that I get a jaggy zigzag like on my vampire character. And I thought to check, and sure enough the same youtuber has a different video explaining how to use the technique for that purpose.

During one of the moments of frustration during my Candyman Kane project I was thinking about taking a break by working on something else, and the thing I was contemplating was just making my regular humanoid pattern but using colors to make the head into a big eyeball. But I decided not to do that because I worried about the jaggies on the top and bottom of the iris and pupils. So since I new had the solution to the exact thing I thought was a problem I decided to try making it to test out the technique. (I also wanted to work out where the best place to transition from "head" to "shirt" color is on my pattern, since I've been kind of winging that with mixed results).

First I started with a proof-of-concept using up the last of a skein of white yarn and using the "you don't need to worry about diagonals going down" idea I worked out before the Candyman Kane project. That looked OK, but I felt I would have better symmetry if I included my "diagonal" technique on both sides anyway. Because of the slightly-angled grid effect of the amigurumi spiral method I felt like I was getting too sharp of a squarish-looking corner on the upper right and lower left with my full-octagon pupil-and-iris pattern. Plus I remembered that my humanoid pattern's head isn't a sphere but slightly oval, so for the next try I skipped two rounds of the pattern to make the head rounder, and used a pattern that was more likely to get a consistent thickness of iris around the pupil. I thought this one was pretty good! The only downside is that there is a little show-through, with a bit of black showing through the purple iris on the left side and a bit of white on the right. So I decided to try the other technique from the first video to see if that would help. It really twisted my head to try to map what she was doing to how I do stitches, so I'm not sure if I was doing it right. I don't think the final results were better, so either I was doing it wrong, employing it in the wrong place, or the technique doesn't address the problem I was trying to solve. So that technique was a bit of a bust, but the "different-color top loop" one is working great, so a big thanks to @flowertron for sharing that with me.

I was also experimenting with the head/body transition with each version, and I think each one I did was better than the last. I'd probably be good if I used this for whatever one I do next, but there are also a few more experiments I want to do with the back of the neck. (Although I'm also contemplating giving myself a short break from my own patterns by trying one or two that I have from a library book I checked out.)

Since I think the middle one was the best overall, here's a 360 view of that one:

So all those in favor of learning new things, vote Eye!