Faux taxidermy

Finally, some pictures of knitting related taxidermy. Having made a Christmas deer head, I decided that I would like a bigger all year round one. I mean, why have one when you can have two?  Here is the Christmas deer, although it hasn't been packed away with the Xmas decorations, so I guess this is an all round deer as well.

Here is the every day deer head. Obviously, since this is in normal colours it looks so much more realistic. I did find that it was more difficult to mount onto the board because it is much heavier. In fact I had to take it down to redo the fixings because it was beginning to sag and peel away from the board when fastened with velcro, but I think that I've sussed it now with some screwed in eyelet hooks and picture wire.

Baby hat and bootees

I've ground to a halt with a couple of projects at the moment so obviously it's time to start something else.........This time I've run out of deer making wool. I was convinced that I had enough wool before I started but a ran out after finishing the first antler. I only have one more antler to do and then it's pretty much done apart from making the mount. I actually haven't done the mount for the Christmas deer yet, but I'm waiting for technical assistance with cutting out the plywood. That might have implied that I was going to cut out the plywood, but actually I'm just going to wait until it is done for me :). In the meantime, I've crocheted a newborn baby hat and bootee set for a colleague who is due to leave at Christmas. The hat and bootee were surprisingly quick to make so it means that I have started AND finished something. Hoorah. BTW the hat and bootee pattern can be found here. It's in american crochet terminology but once you have your head around that It's a nicely written pattern. It also has front and back post trebles so is probably an intermediate pattern, but it makes such a lovely stretchy bootee that it's worth it persevering to learn the technique.

Here's a preview of my Christmas deer. At the moment, it's just lying around waiting to be mounted. I have a couple of weeks to get it done in time for the festive season...... 

Here's a pretty doily beret style hat for a daughter. The finished hat has a little flower on the headband which I hadn't done when I took the photo. It was a nice quick little project using some left over wool from a previous hat and glove session, so fit the bill in a number of ways; quick, cheap and a happy daughter.

This was a finishing off job. The garland was made around last Christmas and I made the buttons whilst on the New Year holiday helped by our (mostly) tame and very talented potter friend Rob Rutterford. Anyway, the pottery was glazed and fired and returned in the summer and all I needed to do was to replace the buttons on the garland with the special pottery ones.  Well now it is done and it looks so much better. I only wish that I had done 11 instead of 9 buttons because I didn't have enough to replace the end buttons.

This is very much a started rather than finished project. I want to make a door garland for winter. So far I've only managed the covering for the wreath and a few leaves and things, but at least it's a start. The best thing about it so far is that it is again using left over bits and bobs of wool. The random colour change wool worked particularly well as it meant that there was not a lot of procrastination choosing the wool and colour scheme - it was very much a case of JFDI (just flipping do it - the polite version)

Faux taxidermy

A quick post about my recent knitting projects. I decided that is was really essential to have a knitted deer head for the wall. I found a fantastic free pattern  for a deer's head and it really does look as good as the pattern. I found the instructions really easy to follow, although there was quite a lot of counting so it meant that I couldn't knit and watch tv too! Fortunately our recent holiday in the Yorkshire Dales was so wet it was quite appropriate to be sitting knitting instead of out walking..........obviously.

I intend to mount my deer head on a sort of fabric padded plaque, so will update with a photo when it is finished. I've pretty much decided to use some Christmas coloured fabric so that my deer will just be a Christmas decoration. This is mainly because I've started making another one...........how could I resist? The second one will be bigger and deer coloured and will be an everyday, always on the wall piece of taxidermy.