Tada! "Woodland Critter" Scarves

Every Christmas, I like to make presents for friends and family, but I do like to try something I haven't made before and this year was no different.  It started with a faux taxidermy knitted fox I'd seen on line and at last year's Knitting and Stitching Show and while searching on line for the designer, Louise Walker, I discovered some of her scarf patterns.  Which were exactly the thing!  I had initially planned to make a dozen of them but soon realised I was going to run out of time, so, in the end, I made just six - one reindeer, one fox and four badgers.

I had so much fun with these and didn't even mind the sewing up - a job I normally don't enjoy very much, especially when there's lots of fiddly bits and pieces to put together.

I think the fox is probably my favourite, on account of the colour of it - I would definitely wear all of these, but I think the fox is the one for me!

I took some liberties with the patterns to be honest - for the eyes and noses, I was supposed to use the little trimit beads, but I think that the buttons look so much more effective - and Rudolph definitely needed a big red button nose.

I've been inspired to do some of my own designing - taking different elements of each of the patterns and making up animal scarves from a combination of those elements.  While the body shapes are all the same, the three patterns have given me three different face shapes, and the ears, legs and tails are all very distinct also.   I'm just about to sew up what had started out as a dalmatian scarf, but there are probably not enough spots, so I think he's just going to be a spotty dog instead.  I'll need to add in significantly more smudges of colour to get a proper dalmatian.  Depending on how successfully he turns out, a post will follow!