Doppelgangers have enormous appeal for me in all forms: professional celebrity impersonators, Dostoyevsky’s The Double, Nabokov’s Despair, houses with miniature/to-scale versions that serve as mailboxes—the list goes on and on! But my current Top-of-the-Heap favorite is crocheted toy twins.
To begin, a question: What makes a good doppelganger? Ideally, it should be both precious and eerie in its sameness—but with most small toys, you’re also painting with a broad brush. Therefore cats (and the like) are a terrific subject, because very simple changes can be made to a pattern to mimic their varying fur and markings.
Recently, I found Claudia van K.’s joyful “Mr. Tibbles the Cat” free pattern on Ravelry and I knew exactly who to model it after…
Meet Harvey, my boyfriend’s cat. He enjoys dirt, moths, making Snoopy noises and sleeping on his very own military cot:
Now, meet Mr. Harvey the Cat. He enjoys eating polyfill and being very quiet:
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To mimic Harvey’s snowy coat, I used 1 ball of Palette in “Cream” (and still had about 50 yards to spare when I was done). To finish, I lightly hand-felted throughout—so there’s a still some stitch definition in the fuzziness. Also, l should add that I deviated pretty heartily from the “Mr. Tibbles” pattern because I wanted to crochet in the round; essentially, I used the pattern as a guide for increases and decreases to achieve a very similar shape.
Do you love making twins as much as I do? If so, please deposit more cat pattern suggestions in the comments! I know a lot of cats. A LOT.
