handmade by stefanie

Just in time for Stitches Midwest, my handspun hippo is complete! Last night I put everything together mostly  without incident, except for the part where I sewed the ears onto the snout instead of the back of the head...and cut the yarn ends before I noticed the mistake. DOH! Luckily, I was able to safely remove the ears and sew them back on in the proper place. I used Susan B. Anderson's  Hippo  pattern from  Itty Bitty Toys   and some of my  handspun yarn  which was the equivalent to worsted weight, so I didn't have to double my yarn. I still used the needles called for in the pattern (US #5) to produce a nice, close-knit fabric, and my finished hippo is just over 9" tall when sitting. He sits up all on his own and is super cute - I can't wait to take him to the Yarn Geek Fibers booth at Stitches this weekend so they can see what I made with the BFL fiber I bought from them at YarnCon this past April! Here are the cliff's notes...