Sheep On My Stuff

I love my custom sheep dearly! I especially love it when a design particularly lends itself to the vertical stripes found on a sheep. And after totally blanking on doing this for months and months and months, I have finally gotten it together and collected the directions for these sheep mods!

For a rainbow sheep,

* Cast on in purple.
* Change to blue after row 9.
* Change to green after row 13.
* Change to yellow after row 21.
* Change to orange after row 27.
* Change to red after row 33.
* Head is red.
* Face is black.
* Inner legs/tummy, hooves, tail and ears are black.

(I also sewed a small piece of gold ribbon on this one to indicate that he is a married queer sheep.)

For a Bi Pride sheep,

* Cast on in blue.
* Change to purple after row 13.
* Change to pink after row 27.
* Head is pink.
* Face is dark grey.
* Inner legs/tummy, hooves, tail, and ears are all dark grey.

Despite the simplicity of this design, this is probably my favorite sheep mod of the bunch. I adore my Bi Pride sheep! :D :D :D

How about a sheep that evokes that Jayne Hat look? A sheep like this walks down the street, you know he's not afraid of anything!

* Cast on in orange.
* Change to yellow after row 13.
* Head is yellow.
* Face is orange.
* Inner legs/tummy, hooves, ears, and tail are red.
* Make a small (I use a 3/4" pompom maker) pompom for its head.
* Optional: Instead of a red tail, make a larger (1") pompom for its tail.

You can overlap colors from the rainbow sheep to make the Jayne Hat sheep if you like, though I used a darker red for Jayne than I did for the rainbow sheep.

What about a Leather Pride Sheep?

* Cast on in black.
* Change to navy after row 5.
* Change back to black after row 9.
* Change back to navy after row 11.
* I cast off in black on rows 12 and 13, but this is nitpicky and optional.
* Change to white after row 17.
* Change back to navy after row 23.
* On rows 27 and 28, I cast on in black, but this is nitpicky and optional.
* Change back to black after row 29.
* Change back to navy after row 33.
* Change back to black after row 38.
* Finish body in black.
* Head is black.
* Face is white.
* Ears are white.
* Inner legs/tummy, hooves, and tail are black.
* For the heart, make an appropriate amount of I-cord in red, then sew on in a heart shape. It will felt down into a more heart-like shape than it looks when you sew it on, but you can shape it with your fingers once it's out of the washing machine if it needs a little more help.
* Optional: Find something to use as a collar -- I got this piece of vinyl-with-rivets ribbon from the quilting department at my local craft store. o_O (They have ones in camoflauge, too.) Or perhaps you could find a hat!

I wish to disclaim that I do not mean these sheep are the "world's finest" sheep, in that all the sheep I have made or owned are very fine sheep, and I believe the world's finest sheep are the ones in my flock, thank you!

But those of you who are comic book fans will understand the title of the post once you see this:

A pair of superheroic sheep, made as a gift. :)

I'm not much for sewing, so the costumes were rather difficult for me. And I used a nice permanent marker for the emblems on Supersheep. However, the modding (this is the FiberTrends "A Felt Flock" pattern from Bev Galeskas once again) was quite fun!

Baatman is made entirely in black, all parts. No tail, as it would interfere with the cape. Not too tough!

Supersheep, however, is cast on in blue. I switched to red for rows... I want to say 8-13, with the legs maintained in blue. Then blue for the rest of the sheep, white for the head, red for the back hooves, white for the front hooves. Ears in white. No tail, as it would interfere with the cape.

I have to say, when I started taking pictures in the window of the craft room, I didn't realize what a neat background that would give me. I really like the leaves. :)

When making four sheep of the same type, with multiple color changes, I felt it behooved me (ha! Get it? Be"hoove"d me?) to make them all at once, so I could see if I had enough purple for the sheep rumps first, and enough blue, and so on. As it happens, purple may not be the one I'm running most short of by the time this is all said and done -- it may be red -- but I definitely had enough purple, which was a relief!

Here's the sheep assembly line!

And a close-up of sheeps in progress:

Plus a picture of how they are size-wise as compared to a sheep that's been felted just once. Bear in mind the sheep is not stuffed -- he'd look a lot bigger if he were!

The KnitPicks Options needles have been a godsend for this project. I just move the needle tips from cord to cord as I go -- easy as could be!

I did start another blue/grey variegated sheep, but after working a couple of rows, I realized I'd rather be working on a color I haven't worked before. So I'll be casting on a camouflage sheep tonight. :D