More ducks and such -- some in the square style

First up, Dylan's duck's head/mug shot.

Duck and blanket still need to have a date with the washing machine but everything's on target to at least be ready for Lucy's return to work in the new year.

On the same baby boom note, I'm hopeful that the fish afghan will finally start to come together in time for it and me to make our way to the next Whistlestop knitting.

Since that's coming up on the 21st and just happens to be both the solstice and start of Hanukkah, I'm having a gee Brent, I don't think I will get that dreidel done in time moment. I know you'll forgive me, after all, you do have a handknit teddy bear.

Shifting gears again, every other Sunday when I'm not contagious, I don the ever so not figure flattering white jeans and pale blue polyester smock, and make my way to the 4th floor of Sharp Mary Birch Hospital where I encourage knitting and other needle arts activity.

This week it was me and Kelly with the ladies in waiting. We also encourage lots of laughter and silliness.

One of the knit a square make a toy duck knitters had reached a now what phase with body and head pieces ready for sewing and stuffing.

I had in hand my example sample to show the sewing bit of the exercise. So I loaded up a tapestry needle with yarn and got the sewing going.

The trick/cheat in the make a square into a toy is in the sewing.

As you can see, three of the four corners get rounded off and tucked away inside. There's about a 2 inch opening where the head gets sewn on.

For the more experienced knitter, its a bit of a waste and they could just as easily do the bind-off and/or decrease to form the shape but for the new knitter, the cheat's a good thing.

Other than the body and the feet, so far my experience with this particular toy, the sewing up is pretty straight forward. The wing and tail pieces are a simple diagonal fold, sew and stuff a bit before attaching to the body.

Remembering that we were low on fibre-fill the last time I was there, I had snapped up the nearly full bag before heading out the door which was a good thing because once the body and head were mostly attached, stuffing was the next logical step.

Student out performed teacher and this firmly stuffed little duck is ready for his wings while my samples are still in the to be sewn phase.

That's fine, it just means more photos and more blogging so the moms in waiting can make progress whether they or I am in hospital.

The stuffing and sewing was so inspiring to the other moms in waiting that I finshed off the day writing up square "recipe" cards for two knit a square lambs so I guess I'll be knitting some lamb parts in the not too distant.

But before the lamb parts hit the needles, I'm going to try again to get a good image of the sewing of the duck feet. The orange is not the most photo friendly colour so its taking a few more tries than the other pieces.