I finished crocheting my sheep tonight. Once I was done with the main body, it went very fast. The legs were a bit of a pain, but I decided to soldier through and now it's all done. Check it out:
OK, it kind of looks like a pig. And I didn't have the right yarn for embroidering the face on. But it's mostly done, done, done, and ready to be off to a baby in the midwest. I'm thinking of doing a lace shawl for my next project.
Great pattern! Where did you get it? I want to make one in fluffy brown eyelash or mohair, to give to a friend who likes hamsters.
What you have there is an all-purpose quadruped pattern. Slight alterations in its morphology plus a judicious choice of yarns could turn it into a dozen different animals.
Suggestions for turning that one into a sheep:
1. Turn it inside-out and invisibly run a sewing thread through several rows of stitches around the middle nose. Gently tighten the thread to narrow the nose, like cinching in a corset.
2. Turn it right-side-out again, and embroider a black nose-tip with an extended stripe that runs from the nose up the center of the face.
3. Stiffen the ears. Floppy ears is pigs.
It came from, believe it or not, the Better Homes and Gardens Lion-Brand fluff mag, Simply Creative Crochet. According to the cover, your local newsstand should dislay it until January 4th.
The nose is all funny because I was crocheting too tight, so I think when I get around to embroidering the face (I lack the required type of yarn because I am not a stasher), I will gently tie the schnozzle end backwards, to flatten it out. This will make it look like a flat-faced pig, I am sure. I will also try stiffening the ears. The floppy ones look all wrong on mine, but in the photo in the magazine they look fine, which just goes to show you how artful photographers can be.
And yes, I was thinking it would be neat to make one with red fun fur interwoven with the plain yarn, so it looks like it's been rolling in a bed of nails. Or with a variety of other changes to make it into other animals. But maybe the right thing to do is give in and make the next one be a pig, intentionally.