Outback Zoo May 7, 2009

My zoo is growing a little bit day by day. Today I finished up my sheep and I promise promise promise myself that I will finish my wombat tomorrow. Come on, three little legs left! I just keep getting wrapped up in my new (and better) projects. But after seeing Kath Dalmeny’s to scale models on Ravelry I feel confident in the way my animals are turning out. Without further adieu, here is my sheep and sheep & kangaroo.

Mama Roo and Baby Roo May 4, 2009

I wish that the book I’m knitting these animals out of showed a ‘to scale’ version of each animal. As I’ve been knitting the last few I’ve felt paranoid that I’m making them way too huge. Even though in the end they measure to the approximate size given, it throws me off to see my finished toy and what’s shown in the book. But despite all of that I have persevered and now have added a Kangaroo & Joey to my collection of toys and as soon as I quit procrastinating, a wombat. I knit all of the Mama Kangaroo flat just like the directions told me to and absolutely hated seaming the body up the front. Maybe nobody else will notice, but the (not so hot) seaming job I did drives me nuts every time I look at it. I knit the Joey in the round because honestly I didn’t want to deal with seaming on something so small. Pre ear adding my Joey looked like a crazy alien (I did I-cord for his arms and legs instead of what the directions said) and now post ear adding he kind of looks like a Gremlin. Good thing I intend to keep him in his mama’s pouch 🙂

Last night I c/o for a sheep who is labeled as pretty easy. I plan on following the directions ’til we get to the horns; they look like perfect excuses to knit an I-cord and curl it up! Hopefully tonight I manage to knit the last 3 legs for my wombat and put some eyeballs on him. 🙂

New finished objects! April 28, 2009

Over the weekend I finished up the Monkey Socks and a platypus from “World of Knitted Toys”.  I love how the socks turned out and have already worn them.  It isn’t unprobable that I will knit them again in a new color.  From my toy book I found it not that bad to knit animals flat and then seam them up.  The wombat I am now working on does seem to be bigger than it should be, but it does measure a little over 7 inches, which is what the pattern approximated it at.  Unfortunately I ran out of black yarn so the wombat is put on hold ’til further notice.  But since I bought a handful of yarn I simply cast on for a kangaroo and will focus on knitting that ’til I can pick up more black yarn.

My mind is just brimming with ideas of what I want to knit next. Since “World of Knitted Toys” is divided into sections and humans to go with each set of animals I really want to knit each ‘section’ to decorate the baby’s room. I think my favorite human knit toy is the Eskimo which is labeled as ‘challenging’ because of the cardigan jacket and hood, but I don’t think it will be that bad. Not only that but I’ve decided that with the remainder of bamboo yarn I have to find an easy baby sleeping gown pattern and knit up a few of those (or at least 2; one for us and one for my aunt). With the remainder of my sock yarn I’ll make a couple of baby hats and I think I’ll throw in some cables for fun. Not only all of this, but I still want to buy some of the organic cotton yarn from KnitPicks and see how that knits up.

Fun fun fun! Pictures to come of my wombat and kangaroo in progress!