Leo the lion

Several months ago I asked my daughter which toy she would like me to knit for my soon-to-arrive grandchild.  She had a look through my copy of Knitted Wild Animals by Sarah Keen and picked out the lion - an apt choice since his starsign is Leo.  I went out and bought the wool and stashed it... 

He arrived, I was totally smitten and knitted him some clothes.  A few months passed.  New Year came and went and I decided I should really get on and knit this lion, so in mid-January I started.  It is all knitted flat and then seamed - I couldn't see any way of knitting it in the round other than by using dpns, which I hate, and I don't actually mind sewing up seams so I followed the pattern exactly as written actually just realised I didn't - see below re the tail.  All the body pieces knitted up quickly but the mane was a bit of a pita.  In hindsight I shouldn't have tried to figure out the stitch and start knitting it while watching TV, I kept going wrong, got fed up with it, and went off in a huff and ignored it for a fortnight.  Determined not to be defeated I went to look for alternative instructions on how to knit loop stitch.  I found a few variations in other peoples' projects on Ravelry and in my various knitting books.  I tried a few out and decided that in fact, all I needed to do was concentrate on what I was doing and not try and knit and watch TV at the same time, so went back to the original instructions and knitted the whole thing in one sitting.  I didn't time myself knitting the rest of it, but I reckon it took me as long to knit the mane as all the other pieces put together.

Then came the joy of sewing it all together (so many ends for such a small thing) and filling it with stuffing.  It surprised me how much stuffing I could squish into the body - I just kept  adding more... and more... and more....  Once it was all sewed together, which was really quite fiddly because it was small, stuffed, pieces (rather than adult- or even baby-sized flat pieces) I needed to make a tail.  I didn't really like the tail in the pattern so decided to make one from i-cord and attach a pom-pom.  Now I have an i-cord making machine which I bought a few years ago but have never used (I think it's called a knitting mill - it's a mechanical equivalent of a French knitting dolly).  It took me quite a while to get the hang of using it and a few false starts, but once I got it working properly it churned out a length of i-cord pretty damn quickly.  Zillions of times quicker than I could have knitted it.  I also made a pom-pom using a pom-pom maker, which is kind of a glorified plastic version of two circles of card, but definitely quicker than making one by hand with said cardboard circles.  A bit of embroidery with black wool for his mouth and eyes and finally, Leo the lion was finished.

And here he is.

Leo the lion

And a side view to show his tail (and his smile)

This was definitely a labour of love and I'm in no hurry to knit more stuffed animals - although maybe, with time, I might feel inclined to knit more as long as there are no manes involved.  The book he came from does have some very cute patterns in it...