WIP Wednesday!

So, this has been the busiest week I can remember having in a seriously long time. I know I say things like that a lot, but believe me when I say that before they were exaggerations because this last week takes the cake! I had a maternity photo shoot, my birthday dinner, my friends telling me they were coming to town, frantic cleaning for said friends, work, Justin's nephew's wedding, my sister's bridal shower, my friends arrive, dog issues that culminated in taking my friends' dog to the emergency vet at 12am,  playing with a 3 year old, going to my brother in law's birthday party, editing maternity session before baby was born this morning. Phew. There's probably more to list in there, such as lots of baking, but suffice it to say it was a crazy week. Most of those things happened this Saturday, and most of them were good things, it was just very hectic to have them all at once lol.

In spite of the craziness, I still have to have a project for the little bit of down time I have at night. I have a few other projects planned, but I had ordered yarn and it didn't arrive until Monday; in the meantime, I finally started my Not So Itty-Bitty Giraffe :)

I purchased the Not So Itty-Bitty Giraffe class from Craftsy way back when. I'd always loved it and then they discounted it to $9.99, so it was mine. Since then I have been acquiring the supplies to make my own giraffe. I bought the kit of yarn from Craftsy too so I could be sure it would come out just like their example. The kit included Cascade 220 Superwash yarn - 2 skeins of Daffodil and 1 skein of Orange. I had the needles and stuffing, I even had the book (Itty-Bitty Toys by Susan B. Anderson - not a requirement since theclass includes the pattern, I just bought it because I liked the other patterns). I was just waiting to get poly pellets and my husband bought me some for my birthday :)

Anyway, I started it last Tuesday night and I am addicted! It turns out I don't get bored of the knitting when it's for a toy - even when it's a large project. I was afraid it would end up like my sweaters and shawl languishing in my project bag for months. I managed to knit the whole bottom on Tuesday and from then until now - even with my craziness this weekend - I have the body about 3 rows from finished!

This is my first time using polly pellets in an animal and I got a little creative. You never want to put the pellets directly in a toy that is for a baby since the pellets can pop out occasionally and they are a choking hazard. So, you can sew them into a sack or a sock or something to enclose them inside. I had heard of putting them in nylons from Stacey Trock's class so that was what I decided to do. I tried just pouring the pellets into the my knee high stocking, but that was a bit of a mess - luckily I caught it before they went everywhere. This inspired a stroke of genius and I went down into the kitchen to grab my canning funnel to control the pellets more. It worked like a charm! I highly recommend using one of these if you do poly pellets at all - the funnels are only a few bucks and man did it help!

So, I filled the stocking up until it looked good. Confession - I tied a loose knot and stuck it in the giraffe first to check and I ended up taking some pellets out before tying 3 knots in the stocking and cutting the excess. The stocking was a fantastic idea! Because it's stretchy, it was easy to squeeze it around to fit through the small hole and then it went back to being round when it was inside. I put a little poly fill along the bottom, then the stocking with pellets, then stuffed it up with poly fill the way Susan shows you to in the Craftsy class and it worked out great.

Now my giraffe looks like this. I could have gotten the body closed up last night, but I'm trying to get myself back into a normal sleep schedule so I was responsible and went to bed just after the stuffing. I will have that piece finished tonight when I go home and then I can start making it look like a giraffe instead of a large pear lol. I'm really happy with this project so far - I was worried about knitting animals since I'm so used to the speed of crocheting them. I thought I'd get bored and not want to finish. Not so! The knitted amigurumi world is now my oyster and I fully plan on making plenty more knitted animals. I guess I'm just a toy maker at heart :) I really love the Craftsy class and it has helped alleviate any anxiety I had since I have someone there to show me everything step by step if I need it. It really makes a difference on the first animal, trust me.

That's my WIP for this week. To see everyone else's, head over to Tami's Amis' blog and check it out!