Parade of Christmas Crafts {animals}

Next up, the animals, watch where you step.

There was a minor theme associated with the Schwartz girls' gifts ~ it started with the purchase of a bed time shadow book called "Whooo's There?" {all about the animals that come out at night}. So what better to go with it than a pair of owls?! One big for the big sister and one small for the littler sister.
The basic design was based upon some crocheted owls that I saw on Ravelry. Rather than push the limits of my sanity and crocheting ability, I decided to improvise a knitted version.

The basic pattern is super simple::
~cast on 4 stitches, one on each of 4 double-pointed needles
~join for knitting in the round
~kfb into each stitch for 2 rows {you should have 16 stitches total, 4 on each needle}

~for the small owl, continue in stockinette until the body is about 3 inches tall

~for the larger owl, knit one more increase row as follows: kfb into the first and last stitch on each needle {you should now have 24 stitches total, 6 on each needle}
~for the larger owl, continue in stockinette until the body is about 4-4.5 inches tall

~stuff the owls and add safety eyes
~squeeze the top of the owl together and determine how wide you want the ears, I made mine about three stitches wide {six stitches total, three from the front and three from the back}
~to make the ears, sew these six stitches closed, continuing to sew around the top of the ears until the stick out the way you want them to {you should be able to see this in my pictures}

~all of the stitches between the ears are still live, using the contrast color that I picked for the 'nose triangle', I knit the front and back of the body together {knitting into a front and back stitch}. This acted as a bind-off for these middle stitches and provided the first row for my nose triangle. I then continued to knit the the triangle, binding off the first and last stitch every other row {you may want to make the decreases faster or slower depending upon whether you want a long and skinny or short and stout triangle}. When the triangle is complete, bind of the last stitch and sew the tip of the triangle to the owl body.

ta-da!

These are rough directions, if you need any clarification, let me know.



On Christmas morning, we were visited by a reindeer of sorts::
Modeling her new sweater, the Shopping Tunic pattern by Wenlan Chia. More about this project in the {sweaters} portion of the parade.

Next up, make way for the Christmas cows. Many were seen, few were photographed.
I love to see the cows grazing in these grand western landscapes driving through Nevada and Utah.


Oh, and of course, who could forget our visit from the Christmas Dino. This guy was keeping Christmas safe somewhere in western Colorado.


Next up:: holiday hats