Meet the crochet artist who made a 10-foot Appa for Avatar Legends in 16 days

Fans of Shayla Palmer (@mesamistoys) know her for her next-level crochet projects.

With more than 650k followers on TikTok and over 1.1 million on Instagram , she's made a name for herself one stitch at a time, creating big, fluffy toys, including Stitch, Batman, and Mario.

But on Sept.

19, 2026, Palmer took on her biggest challenge yet: stitching a 10-foot-long Appa toy, based on the flying bison from Avatar: The Last Airbender .

In the first episode of her series on its making, she revealed the yarn but not who she'd be stitching for.

Fans were quick to recognize Appa's signature color scheme.

Fifteen more episodes followed, detailing the process, including the times when Palmer hit a few snags.

Then, just last week, Palmer revealed this particular toy was created for a special event, tied to New York Comic Con.

Paramount Games Studio hosted a double-elimination tournament for the newly launched video game Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game at OS NY on Oct.

9.

The special event invited gamers to compete for a cash prize, surrounded by food carts offering treats from the four nations (Water.

Earth.

Fire.

Air), boxes of cabbages with a certain beloved cart vendor on them, and Palmer's completed Appa.