Finished

I finished three things this weekend! Go me.
First and foremost I finished the stuffed animals and both are already very well loved. I debated for a few minutes not showing how the panda tuned out because I'm not happy with the head and didn't want you all to think less of me, but my daughter loves it and that's all that matters.


The pig was the third one I'd made, but the only one made with Baby softee. I will NEVER EVER EVER use Baby softee again. I hated the yarn. I still have half the skein left, but I may give it away. I found it splitty and hard to knit with. I dropped I don't know how many stitches and had a really hard time picking them back up (and I seem to have lost my sock crochet hook which would probably have helped). I even managed to have two stitches drop or something when I was sewing it up! The pig is soft though.

Pig from Knitted toys by Fiona McTague. Yarn: Baby Softee (pink) and Scraps of black (probably Caron simply soft)
Needles: Size US three.

The poor panda. It was insisted to me that the panda have light purple ears, which probably adds to its over all lumpiness. Also, I probably could have put more stuffing in. perhaps she's so silly looking she's cute?

Or not.
Anyway, the specs:
Pattern: Panda from Knitted toys by Fiona Mctague
Yarn; one skein each of some sort of Acrylic white and black. I lost th elabels--so probably less than one skein since I didn't double strand as the pattern calls for
needles: US size 7

I also finished the first yoga sock! I have no picture of that for many reasons. First, I finished it right before bed. Second, my husband was teasing me about my sexy feet. finally, I seem to have a few people looking at my flickr photostream that have, let's say feet issues. Someone favorited a picture of a pair of my oldest running shoes. Until I figure out if this is a foot fetish thing (and block the gageebers out of them all) or a running shoe thing (again, possibly block them). I'm not putting up a picture of my half naked foot.

Now I have actually NOTHING on the needles. I failed to get the second yoga sock cast on--due to the lateness of the hour. I need to get going on that though before I decide I'd rather start new socks and swatch for my lovely shrug. Well, I may just cast on all three (well the swatch for the shrug).

The story of the three knitted pigs

In the last entry I mentioned that I had a stuffed pig on my list of things to knit and that it would be pig number three. This is because I had this small bought of craziness back in December when clearly I did not have enough gift knitting for christmas knitting planned. You see, I knew that I had three friends having babies in April (or thereabouts) and I knew two of them should get baby quilts. The third I knew should get baby socks (this is what she gets for telling me the latest)! For all three of them this was their third baby and this means that older siblings should get something, right? Well what better thing than to knit some stuffed animals! (Clearly, I should have been knitting more things for Christmas--I had too much time on my hands). Hence the idea to make two snakes and two pigs was born.

When I finished the first snake, both my kids became insanely jealous. They wanted one too! And really how could you not--he's cute:


I should probably look back at Ravelry to see if I made the second snake before I made any pigs or not, but I'm guessing I made both snakes then started on the pigs. I told both girls, I would knit them something after I knit these toys for the future big sibs.

Then I checked Knitted Toys out of the library, because I just was not getting inspired by The World of Knitted Toys (which I own). I should really buy Knitted Toys because I want to make about 3/4 of the book. I fell in instant love with the pig and knew I needed to make it. So I did:

Then I made another. The girls at this point were really vocal--they wanted their own toys. One of them really really really wanted the pig. So I bought some additional pink yarn and I'll be casting on pig number 3 as soon as I finish either the hoodie or the ice queen. My other daughter leafed through the book and discovered a pattern for a panda. Since she is a panda nut, I'll be making a panda too.
I'm worried about the panda though because you switch colors mid row. I've done this before, but I felted both pieces which did wonders for the holes I couldn't seem to get rid of. I'll be brave though and probably start it after I've knitted the pig up (but haven't stuffed him--because jealousy is rampant at my house). I'd start it first if it weren't for the color changes. I'd probably have them both done by now if I wasn't so sick of knitting for other people.

I've already sent a pig and snake winging to their destination (along with a quilt). I'll write about the quilt next time.