...and On This Farm He Had a Sheep, E-I-E-I-O!

Or as LC says, "Yi-Yi-Yo!"  In fact, she calls the cow I made for her for Christmas Yi-Yi-Yo.  (I'll be kind of sorry when she learns to say E-I-E-I-O instead of Yi-Yi-Yo.)  Aanyway, I got the sheep done yesterday afternoon at work.  It was less of a pain to sew together than I thought it'd be.

I have some assembly tips for those of you considering making little softies for the babies in your lives.  First I left a much longer tail on each body part when I bound it off than usual, at least a foot of yarn. I put on the French knot eyes before I stuffed the head so I could securely knot the two ends of the eyes' yarn together, no button eyes for babies, then I stuffed the head and sewed it closed, weaving in the tail.  I sewed the ears on as securely as I could and then poked the remaining, still pretty long ends from the ears through the head and out the bottom/neck, tied them together with a square knot, and then poked the ends back up into the head, and snipped off the part that came out the other side.  I did the same for the arms and legs, sewing them on, legs first, squishing the body so that I could poke my needle back up to the place I'd eventually attach the head, then knotting the leg tails together and poking the ends back into the body, then I put on the arms the same way.  Next I sewed on the head using the 18" tail I left when I closed up the body, going around a few times before plunging it back into the body, out one side, and back through, until I couldn't go through anymore, then snipped off the tiny end.  The tail, well, the tail I just sewed on as best as I could, poking the yarn back through the body and out one leg.  I see that it's cockeyed but I don't think anyone will care.  Anyway, it's done and I love it.  The Bernat Pipsqueak yarn looks exactly the way I hoped it'd look and the fuzziness of it hides any, ahem, irregularities in the construction.

Last night after we got home I finished Tribal Coaster #2.  I'm kind of hooked on this new technique I discovered while looking for mug rug patterns.  It's called mosaic knitting and it's a way to do 2-color knitting without using both colors at the same time.  In fact I found a hat pattern that I'm going to cast on today to make a hat to go with those toddler mittens I made last week.  Then I'll find another pattern to make using that technique, using one variegated and one plain yarn, only this time in wool.  There's this little zippered purse pattern that keeps poking me...  Like I said, I'm hooked on it, fascinated by it.

April 9--Randy Napier, Red-Eyed Tree Frog.

Big red eyes with black slits,
red suction-cup feet
grasp a green vine
the same green as its body.
This tiny frog hidden
in the jungle
radiates a laser beam
of menace from
unblinking eyes.
~~~~~

That was one seriously creepy looking frog.  I have some strawberry hulls and pineapple peels for the chickens so I'm going to head out.  Tonight's the Bay Lakes Knitting Guild meeting where we get to finally hand in our Design-A-Thon entries.  I can't wait to see what people have come up with and I'm excited to show off what I made.  I'll report.
--Barbara