Fantastic Mr. Fox

Yes, that’s four new balls of yarn.  No, I wasn’t supposed to be buying any more until July… but I fell in love with another Tiny Owl Knits pattern and just had to try it out.

The pattern is this one, and the author also put up a vlog about it.  I can’t even remember how I stumbled across this pattern, I was clearly looking for something but whatever it was, it was driven clean out of my head.  I thought the Mr Fox stole was great, but it was the mini fox that drew me in utterly and completely.

So I ordered some yarn from Jamieson’s of Shetland (and was pleased with their service: I placed the order on a Friday afternoon and it was delivered on Monday), and as soon as the yarn arrived I made a start.

I was a bit wary as I thought the pattern would be complex, but it’s suprisingly simple.  The hardest bit by far was making the ears, which involved four double-pointed needles and nearly resulted in me throwing the whole caboodle across the room.

I persevered though and I’m so glad I did, because mini-fox is possibly the cutest thing ever.

He’s adorable, isn’t he?  I’ve named him Roadkill (for obvious reasons) and am currently a bit frustrated because I started him last Monday, finished him on the Wednesday, and the magnets I ordered on the Monday still aren’t here.  The magnets are going to be added to him so that he clings on around my neck, and until they get here I can’t wear him because he won’t stay put!  The magnets were ordered from Amazon, in case you were wondering which seller was so abominably slow.

Hopefully the magnets will eventually arrive and I’ll be able to wear Roadkill out and about.  I’ve got loads of yarn left over (I ordered two balls of the main colour just in case) so I’ll be making another mini-fox at some point, and I think that next time I’ll make the body longer so that it’ll fit round my winter polonecks which are quite thick. I’m also tempted to make an arctic fox version in grey, but that would involve buying more yarn and I’m not supposed to be doing that am I?…

Would I recommend this pattern?  Yes, absolutely.  It costs $5.50 (approximately £3.50), and I spent £13.83 on the wool (including postage, and there’s definitely enough to make two mini-foxes).  I used glass beads for the eyes, purchased from a local shop for about 30p each.  The pattern itself is clear and pretty easy to follow and Stephanie provides a stitch glossary so that newbies like me can follow what she’s talking about.  I did have to look up how to use stitch markers, and how to knit on four DPNs, but it’s really not hard to find that sort of information.  I’d rate this pattern as intermediate difficulty, just because the ears were SO fiddly to knit: I’ve been using 3 DPNs while making hexipuffs so didn’t think I’d struggle too much adding a fourth needle into the equation, but the addition of that extra needle made a huge difference and I did struggle a lot!

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