Edward's menagerie family growing in size and number.

I'm continuing to work my way through the different animals in the Edward's Menagerie book. some I'm making for my own set and some are being made to send to family and friends having babies I like this idea of my menagerie family being like a real one with different members spread around the country. So here's the latest additions. 

This is Bridget the Elephant, who has gone to live with a cousin of my other half who has just had a little person. Bridget is done is soft DK wool in a gentle grey colour.

I love her ears and chunky tail. the pattern is quite straight forward with no colour changes, although she did cause me abit of an issue. I as I had been working on the separate body parts at work during quite times and had put them on a table awaiting stuffing, some how one of her legs fell in to a box of card making materials so when I came to assemble her she only had three legs and I couldn't find the forth, so I quickly did up another one convincing myself in the end that maybe I had only made three and the forth one was overlooked when changing to a new ball of wool.The missing leg as since been found and waits the possibility of becoming another elephant.

Here is Douglas and Donna waving her off on the way to her new home. They were wondering what new family member they might soon get at home.

And here they are this is Hank the Dorset down Sheep.
Isn't he massive? Hank is make using Aran wool which is the third size (there one more even bigger). His legs ears and nose are made using a dark brown and his body and fleece are done in a "tweed" cream which has flecks in it which I rather like as it creates a mottled look rather than then being bright clean cream. This pattern did take awhile to do as you have to make the body parts as normal assemble them then add the fleece which is done in chain loops and when spaced right means to do about three rounds of loops for every row of stitches on the body or head. I had to do the body twice as the first time I made the loops to tight this had pulled his body abit out of shape and the next time I do a sheep I will stuff the body more firmly to allow for softening as it is pulled and pushed about.

Here you can really see the difference between the different wool thickness. I think the aran was a good choice for this pattern as I cant imagine how fiddly it would have been to create it in 4ply.
I like how the same pattern can easily be adjusted in size with wool thickness and hook size. I do in the whole think most of my collection will be the DK size though as this creates a lovely cute animal.

When I brought the wool for Hank it was on a 3 for 2 offer so I also purchased this other "tweed" ball of Aran with a pinky tone I think this may become a hippo at some point in the future.


So there's my latest additions to the family. I'm sure there will be more before long.