Crochet Snake In Camouflage

My sssimple ssssnake, aka Therapy Crochet for souls demoralised by complicated patterns that need repeated frogging, has reached completion! I am rather pleased with him. He was very simple to crochet, so long as one made sure one always ended up with 35 stitches at the end of each round after the initial increases, and he didn't require too much other brain power - ssimple sstripes, ssimple sstitches, ssimple sstuffing and ssimple asssembly! Here he iss!

Stripy Snake looking less "derpy" than he did!

I followed Lois Daykin's pattern in her book, "Baby Crochet" to shape the tail end and the head but simplified the pattern for the body to simple stripes of single crochet (US) / double crochet (UK) varying the colours and depths of the stripes as I felt like it, until I had a reptile of a good snake-like length. He's ended up about 1.5 m long. My only real difficulty with making him was his expression which has been through several iterations.

I've used buttons layered on top of one another but in the first attempt, where I used black buttons positioned centrally on larger white ones, H's critical verdict was that he looked "derpy". Is that how you spell "derpy"? It's not a word that often figures in my vocabulary! After establishing precisely what "derpiness" consists of - "gormless and foolish" seems to get it more or less, I was forced to concede that H was right. He did look extremely "derpy"!

Now you see me, now you don't!

I experimented a bit with the eyes and even tried painting the black buttons with a graduated white rim but I am afraid he still looked as "derpy" as before. I am not sure that the expression he has ended up with is entirely free of "derpiness", but he looks slightly less gormless than he did! Believe me, he does! H's considered view is that Stripy's permanently lolling tongue means a certain "derpiness" is inevitable and he may have something there. Anyway Stripy has triggered a great deal of hilarity and laughter among all who have encountered him and that can't be bad!

Stripy in situ prior to being snake-napped!

He was made in the same colours of Rico Creative Cotton as my Vintage Stripe blanket so he can lurk camouflaged on the bed or he can earn his keep, less camouflaged, keeping out the draught under the door. As you can see, he has a tinkly bell sewn onto the tip of his tail to warn the unwary of his approach - a gentler variation on the more vicious theme of a rattlesnake's rattle!

Despite the tinkling warning bell, Duck, my crochet mascot, does not like him and prefers him safely by the door to lurking on the bed. Rather like the Biblical Joseph, in his coat of many colours, Stripy Snake is not universally popular with his brethren! Midianite traders in the person of H came and stole him away last night, not to Egypt but to the Augean Stables that is H's room at the moment, much to Duck's delight! He'd sell Stripy into slavery for twenty shekels of silver if he could!