Rohit the Peacock

Have I mentioned before how much I love Edward's Menagerie?! Yes I have - here and here are photos of the flamingo, orangutan, and elephant.  I've also made a donkey, Highland cow, pelican, hippo, and another flamingo.  Photos aplenty are on Instagram.  The donkey is with a colleague, the Highland cow with another Guide leader, the hippo and pelican are on two desks in my shared office and flamingo #2 is with a colleague's granddaughter.

Making these for colleagues' birthdays appears to now be standard - my line manager has a September birthday so I gave her the two books to have a flick through and decide which she wanted.  She gave me a few options and I went with Rohit the Peacock.  He's a Level 3 bird, the hardest level, featuring colour changing and lots of counting.  

What I love about these patterns is how there are a few standard shapes for bodies, wings, legs, and then each bird is adapted slightly: so you add a few extra neck rounds for a peacock, and lots of extra neck rounds for a flamingo, that sort of thing.  The patterns are well-explained with clear photos - really, other designers could learn a thing about pattern writing from this lady!

Rohit has a standard bird body, which took me three attempts to get right as my ability to count appeared to have gone AWOL that evening.  He then has legs with three claw bits and a balancing thing on the back (my bird anatomy vocabulary isn't great) and then a fancy tail - nine feathers divided into three lots of three, each with an ocellus on the end (a science word I have learned - plural ocelli, and yes I did just Google that to check it was correct!).  These were the faffiest (another technical term) bit - I sent regular photo updates to Vikki who I'm sure appreciated it.  Especially when I complained about all the ends I had to sew in.

As with all the animals I've made so far, with the exception of Sophia who in all honesty couldn't look like another other than a flamingo, the animals don't really look that great when they're just in pieces.  It's quite hard to see how they're going to look good when sewn together.  It's as though some magic happens, and they go from looking like messy bits of crochet, to well-proportioned limbs and bodies with slightly podgy tummies. Rohit really didn't look like anything until he had his wings on.  The wings took a long time to do because of the colour changes involved - 3 sts cream, 2 black, repeat, whilst also remembering an increase sequence.  They looked a bit rubbish until it all came together.

Here he is, on my bed, as I thought he'd like my parrot pillowcase.

Look at his tail!

Oh I love him.

Hopefully my manager will love him too - I hope so, as she chose him!!  He is definitely my favourite animal so far, although his time-consuming nature means he isn't one I'll be repeating in a hurry!  So it's back to Sophia I go...