Will's Giraffe Pillow

Just wanted to do a post with all the details of this project now that it's finally finished.



The giraffe pillow pattern is from Creature Comforts: Cozy Knits for Wee Ones by Amy Bahrt. I don't actually own this book, but checked it out from the library and thought it had some pretty cute baby gifts in it. It's one of those books where they have a basic sweater, hat, pillow and mittens pattern and then they have different themes that you can apply to the patterns. Anyway, I liked the giraffe so I copied the chart for him and I copied the basic pillow pattern. However, I forgot to write down any yarn, needle size or gauge information. Maybe there wasn't any? I don't know. So I just used yarn from my stash (Bernat Softee Baby) and the needle size recommended on the yarn (size 6). I decided to add Will's name to the pillow and used the letter patterns found in Styling Your Own Kids' Knits by Kate Buller. I also made a few adjustments to the giraffe pattern (detailed below.)



Pattern: giraffe pillow from Creature Comforts by Amy Bahrt

Yarn: Bernat Softee Baby (less than one skein of pale blue, lemon yellow and white)

Needles: Size 6 straight

Finished size: approximately 8" x 8 1/2"

Alterations:

• I added Will's name to the pillow.
• I shifted the placement of the giraffe so I could fit Will's name on the side.
• I used white instead of brown for the giraffe details.
• I decided to do a braid for the tail instead of a crochet chain.
• I knitted the legs in the round (instead of flat and then folding in half and sewing the seam).
• I connected the legs directly to the pillow while knitting (I decreased my leg stitches until I had one stitch left on my needle, then I lined up my needle with the leg on it and my needle with the pillow on it, and knitted through both the leg stitch and the pillow stitch at once.)

Buttons: The pillow required 3 buttons. The ones I used are by Slimline (Lt. Blue, 11/16", 18mm).

Pillow: I sewed a simple pillow (8 " x 8 1/2 ") out of white fabric I bought from the remnant bin at Joann's. I stuffed it with Polyfill.

Overall, I learned a lot from this project. It was my first intarsia attempt. I got better after frogging several times, but there is still a lot more wonkiness than I would like. Luckily, little Will is too young to care about wonkiness. If I did this project again, I would probably use a different W pattern (I don't really like this one.) and maybe try more stranded technique vs. intarsia.

And to end on a happy note, here is little Will (my friend's first baby). Isn't he adorable?