Mission complete

A few posts ago I mentioned that I wanted to find a giraffe or elephant pattern so I could make one as a gift.
South African friends of ours are expecting their first baby and as they live in the UK, I wanted to make the baby something to remind him of his true roots. We don’t get many Giraffes wandering about in the UK so, this was the next best thing.

It’s an awful picture because I totally forgot to take a picture when I had finished. I was only until we were about to walk out of the door with him that I remembered!
I’m really pleased with how he turned out. His name is George by the way. It couldn’t be anything else. George the Giraffe has a good ring to it, not to mention he was created the same year as Prince George, it made sense.
The pattern was from Lionbrand and you can find it here http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/80449AD.html.
I made two little adaptions to it. Rather than the brown, I used the new grey yarn I had bought, which actually looked really good I thought and I also added a nose to his face. I didn’t think it looked quite right without it. I decided to scrap the safety eyes and embroider his facial features.
I know they’re called safety eyes but seeing as this is for a baby, I’d rather not take the risk!
Do give it a go as it works up relatively quickly and is an incredibly easy pattern to follow.

I’ve also completed my grey cowl. I love them so much, it’s quite ridiculous. Not only are they simple to make, but they’re quick and verrrrrrry warm!

Again, awful picture but I’m relying on my iPad to do all the work.
But now this is done, I have started on a beanie to match. I was debating a beret and I may still do one, but I felt that this particular colour called for a beanie. I think the Beret will need to be done in the mustard yarn.
I also want to do some mittens to match, so if anyone has any good patterns out there, do share!

Busy Busy

I’d been working on one particular project for some time.
After stumbling across a pattern for a Boba Fett beanie, my husband saw it and immediately wanted one. I did some googling and found a handful of patterns but none of them achieved exactly what I wanted, so I decided to make my own pattern by basically staring at a picture of Boba Fetts helmet for quite some time.
I made a basic beanie and essentially “winged” the rest of it. I knew it needed a visor, some buttons and an antenna.
The helmet in the Star Wars movie is obviously very worn, but with wool, I knew that would be very hard to achieve, so I stuck to the main decorations for the hat and I think it worked well.

My 5 year old son very reluctantly modelled it for me.

I had to hide it from my 6 year old son, as he has just discovered the delights of Star Wars and seeing as he was running in and out of the house with a light sabre at the time of completion, there was a high chance my husband wouldn’t get the opportunity to wear the hat.