The Stuffed Reddit Alien Toy

My girlfriend made me a Reddit Alien for Christmas. Having shared it with Reddit, I was asked a couple of questions, including "how big is it?" and "how did she make it?"

The first question has an easy answer: about 50cm from top to bottom. But just posting that answer would be no fun, so here's a photo of the two most important people in my life for comparison:

How did she make it? Yeah, not so simple, apparently. Here's a sketch she made while trying to plan it:

It doesn't help that I know nothing about crochet, and she only started to learn the terminology after finishing the project, but she described it like this:

Ingredients: (or what ever you call them)

• ~100g (but it might have been 200g) ball of double knitting white yarn
• small amount of orange and black yarns
• 4 mm crocheting hook
• 0.5m of white satin lining
• 500g mung beans (or your choice of something else small and weighty)
• 1kg toy stuffing
• A long wire used for cleaning blocked drains
• Three polystyrene balls in different sizes for feet (largest), antenna and ears (smallest)

Recipe: (or whatever we call this bit)

1. Cut out pieces in the shape of the head, body and arms from satin - four pieces each for the head and body to get the shape right, two pieces for each arm
2. Sew the head pieces together, leaving a hole for the neck and a tiny hole for the antenna
3. Sew all the body and arm pieces together, leaving an opening for the neck
4. Put the mung beans in the bottom of the body
5. Shape one end of the drain cleaning wire into a figure-of-eight, which can sit on the floor, with the rest of the long wire pointing up into the air
6. Place the wire's figure-of-eight on top of the beans, with the wire pointing up and out of the neck
7. Cut a circle of satin, slightly bigger than the diameter of the body at the level of the beans, make a hole in it for the drain cleaner, thread it over and sew it in place to hold the beans and the wire in place
8. Fill the body with half the stuffing, packing it tightly around the drain cleaner and up to the neck
9. Thread the head onto the drain cleaner, with the other half of the stuffing and sew the head and body together along the neckline
10. Pinch the arms in to give them definition by stitching along the hem, through the filling
11. Wrap a black ribbon around the drain cleaner and sew it in place
12. Using the white wool, start crocheting at the bottom of the body with a flat circle about 1.5" in diameter, and then increasing so that it fits tightly over the bottom of the body
13. Increase until about the level of the beans and then crochet straight up, but front and back separately to leave room for the arms
14. Stitch the front and back to each other and to the satin lining at the neck
15. Crochet the covers for the arms starting with a slip knot and five double stitches, then increase and decrease as necessary; each arm was a single piece of crochet
16. Stitch these covers over the arms
17. For the head, start with a flat ring made out of a chain (leaving a hole for the antenna) and then increase to follow the shape of the head.
18. At the widest point, slide this crocheted half-head over the antenna, fit it to the head, and then decrease quite sharply until it reaches the neckline, where it is stitched to the body part
19. Cut the polystyrene balls for legs and ears in half
20. Crochet the ears, beginning with a circle and increasing to follow the shape of the hemisphere. When covered, stitch it to the head
21. Crochet the feet, beginning in the same way, but then crocheting flat circles for the bottom and crochet these to the covering
22. Place the alien onto the feet, push the feet into place and stitch the feet on, making sure that they are attached to the satin lining so they don't move around
23. Push a hole halfway into the polystyrene ball using a chopstick. Crochet over the antenna ball (increasing, then decreasing), making sure the hole stays at the bottom
24. Bend the wire to create the antenna's kink and cut it to the right length, push the antenna ball and sew the crochet cover to the ribbon covering the wire
25. Use orange yarn to make flat circles for the eyes, leaving a long piece of yarn on each and use that stitch them on with a knitting needle
26. Crochet a chain in black yarn for the length of the smile, single crochet over the chain to get the width right and increase to get the bend correct, leaving a long piece of yarn and using that to stitch it on with a knitting needle
27. A baby Alien is born!