These animals from Kerry Lords’ Edward’s Menagerie pattern collection are endlessly brilliant! Previously I adapted the zebra pattern to make a unicorn, and my friend Susan commissioned two from me for her daughter and her friend. When Sooz told me she was expecting another baby it seemed logical to me that an elephant and a unicorn would make a pair, and as it happened I had this ball of grey yarn stashed which is super beautiful!
It looks almost like marble when it’s crocheted up and has a very dense, cozy texture like a snuggly felt. I must confess to losing the ball band, but I think it was Rowan tweed of some kind. I went looking for some more recently but I couldn’t see the right colour way, I’m hoping it pops back up in the summer so I can make some more marble-y creatures. (Perfect for the constant stream of pregnant, minimalist, Scandi colleagues I have at COS HQ.)
I crocheted the unicorns’ tail, but it went all whirly like a cartoon piglet and I wasn’t too happy with it. (Although, to be fair no one can dispute the potential accuracy of my unicorn tail, so who cares?!) To improve on that for the elephant tail I dug out a lucet. Now, I honestly try very hard not to be a hoarder; but when you realise you’ve been keeping not one but two medieval braid tools in your home for at least 15 years you clearly have a problem.
For those of you who didn’t spend your formative years accumulating the stock of every single stall at the craft fair, this is a lucet:
It makes a simple square braid by wrapping yarn around the prongs and lifting the loops over, similar to a knitting dolly if I remember rightly. There are plenty of tutorials on youtube, which is how I refreshed my memory on how to use this, or you could follow a pictorial tutorial like this one from the pertinent website lucets.com.
The finished guy has charmed everyone, most of whom pop their little finger up his trunk which seems faintly inappropriate. He’s also been well received at the home of new arrival Elijah Curtis and I hope he gets dragged around for years to come until he’s super gross, a bit threadbare and missing some appendages.
milkbottle 