I am often my own worst enemy, procrastinating projects that I'm not confident about. In August, RainCity Fiber Arts asked if I would design a pair of fingerless mitts for her Pilchuk Chunky yarn. She wasn't in a rush, so I did not make a priority of the project. Other projects have come and gone and the yarn still sat on my shelf, patiently awaiting my attention. Yesterday, I had a horrific headache and wasn't up to doing much more than laying in bed, watching Netflix, so I decided I would be a bit productive. The challenge was to use as much of the 82 yd hank as possible, without going over. Success! Using my scale to check my remaining yarn at key points of the first mitt, I successfully completed it with just a hair less than 1/2 of the yarn used. I cast on and worked the second mitt and found I ended with approximately 3.5 yards remaining. PERFECT! I will be writing the pattern up (officially today), then just need to get some great photos. The pattern will be available from RainCity Fiber Arts and perhaps on my Ravelry store as well. We haven't hashed out all of the selling details yet.

Pilchuk Mitts
Yarn: RainCity Fiber Arts Pilchuk Chunky (82 yds/100 g)
Needles: S-M 10.5 (6.5 mm); M-L 11 (8.0 mm)

Short-cuff fingerless mitts with thumb gusset.

Under the influence of my youngest child, Saphushia, I decided to work on the parrots. I picked a few of the brightest colors in my available palette and started. The original shape before adding the wings, tail and beak, looked like a strangely colored piece of candy corn, according to Saphushia, and I must agree that she was correct. Once I added the extras though, it is amazing what a difference it made. Below are the changes I made to the pattern.

Parrots (page 70)
from Mini Knitted Safari
Finished Size: approximately 1.5"

Small amounts of Wool of the Andes Worsted in Caution Yellow, Red, Peapod Green, and Winter Night Blue. Beaks and feet were worked in Creme Brulee Yellow. The eyes on the green parrot are stitched with Brown Sugar Brown and on the red parrot are Coal Black (though I think I will rework them in a dark gray so they stand out against the blue better. 

The pattern is worked as written, with the following exceptions. 
Wings: Work Row 4 decrease as k2tog, ssk. Then work Row 6 decrease the same.

I needle felted all of the appendages onto the parrots, rather than sewing, and the eyes were worked as back stitches, shortened by needle felting.

For several years now, I have had Fiona Goble's Noah's Knits book in my Kindle library, thinking of some time in the future when I would take on this fun project. I knew that it would be an enormous undertaking (and expensive), but I love doing these fiddly little knits (and crochets) from time to time and putting my own stamp on them. Recently I was given a gift certificate, which allowed me to purchase the majority of the yarn to get me started (30 different colors) for a little amount of money out of pocket. I chose 100% wool, as I knew I would want to be able to needle felt details (fur textures & colors) onto the animals as I created them. The patterns specify a DK weight yarn, but I decided to use Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Worsted (actually I ordered before I looked at what was recommended, serious breach of protocol there), accepting that I would have issues with gauge and size.

Then a few days ago, while browsing Pinterest, I ran across some amazing knitted creatures by Sachiyo Ishii. After a bit of work tracking her down I found that she has a few books published, including Mini Knitted Safari. This book intrigued me, as there were so many different animals from what was included in the Noah's Knits book, so I just had to purchase it. Using this book as well adds 27 animals (some are repeated) to the original 14 in Noah's Knits, plus Noah and his wife.

I decided to start this project earlier this week, as I am sort of between projects and these animals have been calling my name for so long. After browsing through Noah's Knits, I decided to try a goat. I also thought I would try it in the round (all of the animals in both books are worked flat and seamed together. I was using a size 6 (4.0 mm) needle and everything went well until I was supposed to cast on additional stitches for the neck. I went through the entire process of sewing up the pieces that needed it, but it was very quickly apparent, how the wrong gauge can throw your entire project off. My semi-finished piece looked like a cross between a goat and a giraffe, plus the size of the ark needed to house animals knit in this gauge would have also needed to be very large (considering the number of animals I wanted to make that are so much larger than a goat), so I frogged the whole thing. The next day, Mini Knitted Safari arrived and I discovered that all of those patterns required DK weight yarn as well. Since I had already invested so much money into the worsted weight yarn, I decided to try an excessively tight gauge on size 2 1/2 (3.0 mm) needles. I also changed projects and cast on for the brown bear from Mini Knitted Safari.

As it only vaguely resembled a bear once it was sewn up, I despaired that this project would never get off the ground, but with some judicious stuffing and resewing of seams to adjust the outline, plus extensive use of my felting needle, it now resembles a brown bear and meets my "cuteness standards". With my tighter gauge it measures approximately 3" long x 2 1/2" tall. Still a little big, but definitely more appropriate than my much larger goat. I will detail the construction of this cute creature as well as the changes I made to the pattern, below.

My youngest child has some amazing creative talents herself and has decided to join me this year in creating an ark worth of animals, only her's will be sculpted out of polymer clay (her preferred medium). We will be trying to keep up with each other (for the most part) and will do the same animals as the other individual. I have some grand ideas and hopes for this project as we progress throughout the year, including making the ark (knitted, of course, unlike the ark 'pattern' in Fiona Goble's book, which is made from cardboard). I hope you will join me on this journey of discovery and creativity.

Mini Knitted Safari - Brown Bear
Needles: Size 2.5 (3.0 mm)
Yarn: Wool of the Andes - Brown Sugar

Possible typo on Row 21; I knit 8 sts instead of 11, to keep it in line with future increases.
Adjusted seam down front breast, cinching in 2-3 sts down entire length to front legs.
Extensive needle felting around the neck to create a neck.
Eyes and nose felted on in Wool of the Andes, black and chestnut respectively.
Tail, instead of running tail through remaining stitches, I folded the stitches in half along the cast on and sewed them together to create an oblong tail rather than circular.