Mudkip (Pokemon #258 Gobou), amigurumi pattern review

What do you think of Gobou, named Mudkip in English ? In my personal list of the cutest Pokemons, he's certainely in Top 20, even if he is from the 3rd generation and maybe a little less popular than Pika, Charmander or Eevee for example.

So I've been searching the web to find a nice and free pattern to try. Here is my pick and review : Mudkip pattern created by CrochetCantar .

The pattern is available in English and Spanish version with nice printable pattern files.

Here are my personal thoughts / notes (I'm sick since few days, so maybe I got some things wrong here, but well, I'll share them with you anyway, hope you'll be indulgent if I was mistaken) :

- Material precision (not included in the pattern) : I used a 3,5mm hook with a french yarn equivalent to Super Saver, for the eyes I used 8 mm with this size of yarn / character

- at first, I had few troubles with the written instructions, but when I finally got used with "-1" and "+1" standing for decrease and increase, that part was finally easy to follow

- last rows of the head : penultimate row has 15 stitches and for the last row you are supposed to dec to the end but how to when 15 is not an even number ? I have made 8 dec (using 16 st), not sure if it's what the author meant

- and for the body : last row should be made of [sc dec] when penultimate row has 20 stitches, so uneven number... I have made [sc dec] x 7 (using 21st). Then I made an extra of dec row because it seemed to me that 14/13 stitches of last row was a bit large to close.

- the 2nd part of the cheeks, I've been trying to follow the pattern a couple of time (and more) but never ended with something that was close to the pictures. So here is my own stitches for the 2nd part of the cheeks (I would not let you down here, even if I am sick ;) :

Ch3, in 2nd st : sl st, sl st

Ch4, in 2nd st : sl st, sl st, sl st

Ch3, in 2nd st : sl st, sl st

Then sl st in very first chain to close, leave tail and sew

I would highly recommend to use pins to set all parts before sewing

I wished the pattern had an underside with the lighter blue, but it would have meant more sewing °-° and overall, I really love how this Mudkip turned out.

So, will you give it a try ?

(note: on these assembly pictures, the count of rows is wrong for the head. I have crocheted again and that's what you can see on the pictures of the finished toy)