Stampede!

A woman at work just adopted a baby girl, so I went out and picked up a couple balls of "cashmere luxury aran" in mauve from AC Moore thinking I'd whip up a little hat and call it good. However, in my travels looking for a good newborn hat pattern, I stumbled upon this pattern for a garter stitch elephant. I work at a university whose mascot is an elephant, so this seemed much cooler to me than a boring little hat. The only problem was I couldn't stop at just one! I went and got some more yarn and made two more for two other friends babies who I'm overdue on gifting.


the herd

The "Cashmere Luxury Aran" (45% merino, 49% microfibre, 6% cashmere) is *so* soft and smooth and makes a really nice touchable baby-friendly fabric. I just love it. The colors from left to right are "denim" "mauve" and "olive" but I think the olive is named wrong, its less olive to me and more spring green. The denim elephant is acutally in a chunky weight (3.5st/in vs 4.5) and I think it came out the best - the fabric is more dense and he just seems more sturdy and well-propotioned overall. All three were knit on Denise #6 needles.

These are a very quick (1 day of sporadic-toddler-watching-knitting) and require only a little yarn: just over one 100yd ball of aran weight and 1.5 70yd ball of chunky weight. The only part of the pattern I altered was the tail, the pattern knits it flat and I made my tails with a 4 stitch I-cord, reducing it down to 3 then 2 stitches to taper it.

Hoping my latest Elann order arrives today so I can start on Devan.