Of Elephants and Peacocks

After I landed in California, last week, Fiance took me to his parents house. At this point I had had a hideous travel experience and was both famished and tired. We decided to stop at the house, change and head out to eat. As we pulled out of the house, heading for dinner, I glazed over while looking out the window, until something caught my eye. That something was so out of place that it caused me to yell "holy $&@#, there's a peacock in the road!" It was perhaps not the best response because it freaked fiance out and caused him to slam on the brakes. And then he said, very calmly I might add, "Oh, yeah....they have them around here." Needless to say I was a little more than surprised to find out that right up the street was a park that happened to have peacocks. They are not "wild" since someone put them there, but they do quite well for themselves. They are not kept in cages or a petting zoo, but rather are allowed to roam as they please around the neighborhood. It was strange, indeed, but really fun. They aren't the sharpest birds in the world, but sure are entertaining to follow around. Here are some more pictures of the random, but beautiful, birds I met.Click for big

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Yesterday, I had dinner with my Mom for Mother's Day. Yes, I know, I'm a little behind, however, considering I was in California on the actual day, I was given some leniance. =) Knowing that this dinner was coming, I managed to finish the elephant that I talked about, so long ago. It took a LOT longer than I had anticipated, more than twice the time that LMKG seems to thinks it should. I knew it was going to take me a little longer, but the amount of time it acutally took was insane. I'm thinking over 20 hours here. Some of it had to do with the yarn, some with making it bigger, and some with me never having made a knitted stuffed before. Could I do it again, but faster? Yes. Will I? Likely not.


Yarn: 2 blobs of Belleza Collection: Dolcetto from Joann's (best color pic here), a bit of pink Shine Sport left over fromt he Intarsia baby blanket, and leftover Cascade 220 from a scarf.
Needles: US 6 16" and 24" circs and set of 5 dpns
Gauge: Forgot to measure
Pattern: Elephant from Last Minute Knitted Gifts
Measurements: About 16" tall and 7" wide without ears at full extension
Notes: I made about every change I could to this pattern. I used a bulky yarn instead of 2 sport weight strands held together (except where I used pink "Shine sport" to make the tip of the nose, I made it about 150% bigger than intended by casting on more stitches and knitting more rounds (time consuming), I made it a "him" instead of a "her" by using blue Cascade 220 to make the scarf, I did extra decreases for the neck, and extra increases and decreases for the ears. I'm sure the list is even longer, but I can't remember all of them =)
The pattern was pretty cool, though, except for being a little small. Most toys I've seen have ALL the peices knit flat and then sewn on, whereas the arms and legs are knit flat, and then the legs are joined by using 2 circs and knit together to make the body. This reduced some of the seams and sewing, but I managed to make up for that by having to sew extra on the ears that I made too big and floppy. Ooops.
Either way, "he" turned out well and my Mom couldn't believe that I made him. A fellow knitter could have noticed, but for a first try, he looked pretty good.