Attack of the stuffed animals.

There comes a time in everyone’ s life when they feel like they need to follow a fad. Even if they know that that fad will result in a butt ugly garment. Even if they know everyone else is doing it. Even if they know that they’ll wear the garment 3 times, and then hide it in the back of the closet.

At these times, we must turn to our stuffed animals.

I have to admit that the poncho bug bit me. I mean, everyone kept knitting them, and while I’ve seen very few that I’ve liked and/or thought would look good on me, I kinda felt left out.

So, while watching/blogging the last presidential debate, I looked up the Yarn Harlot’s poncho pattern, sized it down to stuffed animal size, grabbed an odd ball of Brown Sheep Handpaint Originals, and went to work.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind when downsizing a person pattern to a stuffed animal.

1. Stuffed animal heads to stuffed animal bodies do not match human heads to human bodies. Stuffed animal heads are bigger compared to body size than human heads. That means you probably can’t just cut the number of cast on stitches by half, and expect it to work super well.

2. If you do cut the number of stitches in half and expect it to work super well, most stuffed animals will not mind if you have to squish their heads to get the poncho on.

3. If you are knitting in Barnes and Noble, and want to see if your poncho is long enough, you are likely to find a seasonal bear of the appropriate size. These bears do not mind modelling ponchos, although your knitting pals may die of laughter watching you.

So, what I did was cast on 30 stitches, and then followed the rest of the Yarn Harlot’s instructions. I should have cast on more like 45, perhaps, if I wanted a looser neck line. But Brideen the Clouded Leopard doesn’t really mind.

There are two sets of eyelets all the way down the front, they just aren’t open in this picture. Brideen is one of the World Wildlife Fund animals from Build-A-Bear. I love Build-A-Bear, even if they are expensive and probably evil in some fashion. I have at least 7 Build-A-Bear animals, I believe. I drag out of town guests to the store and force them to make animals. (Well, my sister. She made a Chicago Tourist Bear.) I’m going to try and convince Mom she needs to make an animal as well. I’ve been trying to control my acquisitions by only buying clothing, but the problem is that they keep coming out with new animals I just have to have, and so that’s why the Clean Sweep people are probably heading my way now.

Speaking of Build-A-Bear, here is my newest addition, Morrie the Polar Bear. He’s sitting in my latest unfelted cat bed.

He’s also wearing an argyle sweater. I think he may want a hand knitted one, although I’m not sure he’s getting one.

Finally, here’s one of the best pictures I’ve ever taken of my Katie cat. She doesn’t stay still for the camera very well, and its hard to get a good representation of her coloring. She’s taking off her, because she saw the pre-flash, but I still like it.

Saturday, the knitting group is heading to Threadbear. I’m excited, even if they are a bit low on Koigu, we’ve heard.