Finished Objects

Or, Now They Can Be Shown . . . this is the Thanksgiving Turkey.

He's from a pattern by Alan Dart, British knit toy designer extraordinaire, except that his is done in DK weight yarn, and mine is worsted (spur of the moment project, and that was what I had, etc.), and the colors are a bit different, and the pattern's hat is knitted and mine is felt, and the pattern has a knitted collar, and mine's eyes are different . . .

But I like him.

My worst problem with knitted toys is stuffing—I've made cloth dolls for years, and they need to be stuffed within an inch of their lives. (In fact, I took a stuffing class once with Colette Wolff of the late and much lamented Platypus Patterns [I should have bought them back in the 90s], back when Wee Folk of Cloth was operating, and the doll body I produced could have easily been used to bludgeon some unsuspecting person. I never finished the doll—back then I need pattern and many instructions to follow to the letter—but I learned a lot about stuffing.) Knitted toys, on the other hand, need to be stuffed . . . differently. Firm, but if you stuff them too hard, the knitting warps and the stuffing shows through (case in point: turkey breast. Not awful, but I notice it.), since the only stuffing I can find is white. (Someone—Fairfield?—used to make a special dark polyfill. Three colors, if I remember right: black, dark brown, and a lovely caramel. That, too, has gone away.) Though I have used brown wool roving to stuff small knitted/crocheted bears, there was a lot of turkey to stuff.

Next, The Christmas Lemur.

I made this for Lara's Christmas gift (she studied lemurs in college, or worked with them at the Duke Primate Center, or something . . . at any rate, she's fond of lemurs). This is Hococo, another Alan Dart pattern. This time I used the actual yarn suggested (ordered from Knitting, Beads and Other Things; she carries English DK acrylic yarns, Simply Knitting magazines, yarn-in-a-bag for Alan Dart's patterns, and other goodies; and she's very nice, too); the scarf and holly were my additions. (Scarf done in KnitPicks Palette; holly is felt and beads)

The holly is removable, obviously; so is the scarf, but without it he might be cold, since lemurs are tropical, aren't they?

And here he is in his guise of Chinese New Year Lemur.

And, of course, there are the usual hats. No pictures yet, because I'm slack. But possibly soon!

Comments

[linda]

Great stuff! I'm working on Alan Darts mice....Little Bo Peep...the pattern book came from Simply Knitting....I will check out your yarn source because it is the yarn that keeps me stalling:) You can use acryluc yarn o stuff things sometimes...depends on the size of course.

[Kai]

Ohhhhhh! Both your turkey AND your lemur are WONDERFUL! You did a great job with the stuffing! SO great, in fact, your Mr. Tom Turkey is VERY scared. He says hearing 'turkey & stuffing' in one sentence does NOT bode well. LOL!