Giant Crochet Occamy

 In a KNUTshell

• The Occamy is approximately 90cm long.
• Their bodies are crocheted in Bernat 'blanket' yarn. 
• She is stuffed with recycled polyester filling and has light-reflecting 3D gold eyes. They are truly mesmerising!
• She comes with a custom book-page badge and adoption card.
• I solemnly swear that all materials are cruelty-free and vegan. 
• While all my beasties are made with love and care, they are not CE-tested, so are not intended as toys for young children

The Backstory 

The Occamy is one of the indisputable stars of FB1, and it isn't hard to see why. From her striking colours to ever-changing size, she truly bewitched my heart and soul each time she appeared. What's more, I loved how she gave a new twist to the dragon and snake folklore that abounds in the original HP series, which shows how the magic is ever-evolving too!  

The Design Story 

Before 2020, I tried my hand at crocheting an Occamy twice, yet always faced the same stumbling block... yarn. I kept finding yarns with wonderful colours, yet the texture was anything but. The reverse was also true, with yarns that felt incredibly soft and luxurious, but didn't come in the right colours. When I finally did find a yarn I loved, it was only to realise that it had discontinued... What was a Witchcrafter to do? 

The answer: keep searching! In the end, my favourite brand Scheepjes came to the rescue with their 'river washed' yarn, which combines to key colours but in varying textures - one is a brushed cotton, while the other is pure cotton strands. The result is truly quite magical, with tiny flecks of pink/purple in the main blue body. I then found a contrasting shade, where this main blue becomes the flecks and the yarn itself is primarily purple - that became the chosen yarn for my wings and mane.

Onto the wider pattern, when it came to designing my Occamy I had three key aims:

• firstly, ensuring that the body was long enough that it can tie into a knot. Not only does this give her future family more options when displaying her, but it also evokes her size-changing abilities - when tied in a knot, she appears quite small, but when unravelled she spans more than 60cm from head to tail!  
• finding eyes that truly stood out and had a gemstone-like quality (I use gold 3D eyes to achieve this, which are more raised than other craft eyes);
• making the wings a true statement feature. Accordingly, I use a scalloped edge along one side of the wing, before threading craft wire through this side - I use the same technique for my Thestral, which allows the wings to be fully posable (as demonstrated in photos).

Your Story 

As with all other Spew Crew beasties, each Occamy is handmade to my own pattern, so is 100% exclusive to Bumble and Be. As they are made-to-order, it means that no two will be quite the same, but I like to think that is part of their magic - just like an Ollivander wand!

Every single thestral adopted will also come with their own exclusive adoption card and "beastie book badge", which I make from the secondhand pages of Harry Potter books. Before your beastie flies off to you, I will ask if you have a name in mind and - if so - put this onto the adoption card. On that note, this name will often form the basis for the book badge too; for example, past customers have called Occamies River and Dream, so I have chosen passages with these words included!  

My makes are inspired by the Wizarding World, but are unlicensed and have no affiliation with Warner Bros/JK Rowling.