Meet the yip-yips!!

I had a lot of fun with these last year!

knitted yip yip line up

Made using odds and end of yarn I have lying around they were a nice 2-3 evening knitting project. I based the pattern on these ones by Clarissa Browning, but made it smaller, so using normal 'double knitting' yarn rather than chunky.

When I first came across them I had no idea what they were, but was soon educated into the finer aspects of Sesame street!


So cute! I made mine as silly christmas gifts for my sisters (and sisters in spirit) last christmas. Here is where some of them ended up:

holding TV treats

a desk tidy

handy for going out

knowing where the gloves are

I think you could probably make them the same size as a can so that they would hold their shape with heavier contents.

Brr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-ring!

Thanks for bringing a chuckle to this character.

Omg these are hilarious. My mother would love something like this.

I loved seeing these last year!!
i`m thinking i may need to go get me some red yarn. every year we trim the tree with something bizarre: some little bitty yip yips might work very well.

Tereza Okava wrote:every year we trim the tree with something bizarre: some little bitty yip yips might work very well.

Oh yes! - I could see them as tree decorations with a little treat or favour in each one!

The only tricky part was the top of the head, each one of mine ended up slightly different, but a small one would really just need the last few stitches gathered. How would you do the antenna? I used an i tube with a pipe cleaner inside. Can you get red pipecleaners? Or stiffen the yarn somehow?

Yip-yips are so adorable! At first I thought they are hats!
For stiffening, do you have twisty craft sticks? Those will work if inserted in the cavities. When I need to fill something bigger, I go for the foamy hair curling rods.

May Lotito wrote:Yip-yips are so adorable! At first I thought they are hats!

If you made them big enough and didn't do the base...Or they could be swallowing your head !

For stiffening, do you have twisty craft sticks? Those will work if inserted in the cavities. When I need to fill something bigger, I go for the foamy hair curling rods.

Translation UK:US
pipe cleaner: twisty craft sticks

I guess if you are giving them to children craft stick has less smoking association, although a pipe doesn't have to be for tobacco - it could be a water pipe.
I hadn't realised they did such a wide range of colours:

jumbo pipe cleaners for crafting

source
These are extra fluffy ones which would be an intermediate size. I just used the normal small yellow ones to make the antenna curly and posable. We stock them in our shop, although no pipe smokers live locally at the moment they do come in for crafts and cleaning out fridge drains.

Nancy Reading wrote:

For stiffening, do you have twisty craft sticks? Those will work if inserted in the cavities. When I need to fill something bigger, I go for the foamy hair curling rods.

Translation UK:US
pipe cleaner: twisty craft sticks

I guess being part of the British Commonwealth, we get it from both sides (for the record, I understand pipe cleaners not twisty craft sticks, although now I'm bilingual).

i just realized i have posted these little yippers everywhere but here!!  
I really just eyeballed the whole thing and used some leftover craft supplies I had laying around. Note the other crazy handmade ornaments from previous themed Christmases ("sharknado", motherfoofy snakes on the motherfoofy tree [didn't see the movie but i think the point was obvious, and how easy is it to crochet snakes??], the Christmas of Covid we made poop emojis....).

An aside for crafty folks: this is my first crochet project after getting my hand operated on! like many people with Ehlers Danlos I have bad arthritis in my thumbs, cartilage has been gone for years but I was delaying surgery because that's how I am. This year a tumor appeared in the region and so I had both issues fixed. Along with removing and replacing the finger bone with the tumor, they removed the bottom wrist bone of the arthritic thumb joint, leaving it floating (trapeziectomy) and made a slingy type thing out of a tendon from my forearm to give me function (ligament reconstruction and tendon interposition).  After two months of therapy the darn thing is literally as good as new. It is SO NICE to crochet and knit (and everything else) again without pain. My situation was a bit more complicated because of the tumor, but even so I am really glad I did it. Had I known, I would have done it years ago.

yay for yip-yips! They're so happy looking!

So glad your surgery went well too; Two for the price of one

Re the original Sesame Street vid -- isn't it amazing how something that moves rather slow and doesn't have flashes or whizzbangs or crack cocaine hits can be so much damn fun? There's subtle genius in that. Brilliant work IMO.

These are Awesome!!!

I love these and I have had a pattern for them for quite some time but have never gotten around to making them. I'm not independently creative in the knitting and crocheting departments and need a pattern. I think I'll make some this weekend. They really are cute.

It's a free pattern for both knit and crochet versions if anyone would like to grab it. https://www.lovecrafts.com/en-us/p/yip-yips-knit-knitting-pattern-by-carissa-browning

Thank you for reminding me about these.

I think that is the pattern I started with Paula (I certainly recognise the pictures!) but I adapted it to use standard double knitting yarn rather than the chunky yarn I think they suggest. It's pretty easy to make the body longer or wider. I found the top of the head the most difficult to get right.
Have fun!

i also ad-libbed to use thinner yarn (much thinner, almost bakery twine type weight, it was what the yarn store had on sale) and crocheted. The first one took some experimentation but came along pretty easily-- they're just slightly larger than finger puppet size.
they're on my tree again this year, as i didn't get my act together to make anything this year and we're not doing much for the holiday in terms of visits or parties.

I thought they were "yup-yups" lol. They were my favorite characters on the show, honestly. Adorable.

This will be a fun little project for some of my leftover yarns. As a colourfull catchitall. Yip Yip!

sylvia schu wrote:I thought they were "yup-yups" lol. They were my favorite characters on the show, honestly. Adorable.

Yup yup yup yup yup yup!