A Little Something

I have a great aunt (not a Great-Aunt) who gives me little gifts that she sends along every time my mother comes to visit. She collects lots of shopping bags for my plarn. She collects elephants to pass on to me because she knows I love them.

She has had a few collections of her own over the years, but one of the latest is sheep. She has porcelain sheep, sheep mugs (think "I Love Ewe"), sheep plaques, landscape paintings with sheep, etc etc. But I don't think she has a knitted sheep.

When I saw this pattern, I thought it was the cutest sort of primitive craft sheep. So I gave it a whirl.

I used the homespun I got at Red Purl, done by Kallie, for the body and some Patons wool I had laying around for the head. And the legs are fancy striped pipe cleaners.

The knitting is very quick, but there's all that fiddly sewing and stuffing that I apparently don't like. I don't actually feel like I dislike it, but I've noticed work like this is always the last thing I will pick up. Too much thinking, I think.

But in any case, I got it done in time for my mother to bring it back to her. And I think it turned out pretty dang cute too.

Technical notes: The pattern is done on straight needles with the double knit method. This makes the knitting much looser than if you just work it on dpns or circs. Considering it has to be stuffed, the knitting should be snug and close. I would recommend following the directions but using dpns or circs to work in the round. Mine unfortunately showed quite a bit of the white stuffing and would be at risk of losing stuffing if it was actually going to used as a toy. You may also notice that I skipped the horns.