In Which We Meet Violet

Through the magic of the Internet, I met Katie. She's an excellent friend. One of her amazing traits is that she can knit and crochet. She is, in fact, bicraftual. In a clear illustration of her awesomeness, she offered to crochet the pieces necessary to make a happypotamus (these pieces shall henceforth be known as "hippo bits").

My end of the bargain was to sew the hippo bits together and fully assemble said hippos. I would send one back to Katie.

Katie then realized that hippo bits are a tedious pain in the ass. She finished mine anyway because she is awesome. Hers is on hold.

first pieces!

I started assembling last week.

hippo bum!

After I sewed all the pieces, I gave it a soak. The hippo had been through a lot and needed a bit of spa time. (The floating bits in this picture are the two ears and the final nose patch that gets attached after all the stuffing happens.)

The pattern recommends using glass or plastic eyes with a little hook on the end. I didn't have these and didn't want to buy 100 eyes--I don't make that many things that require eyes--so I used the pair I had left from when I knit my sister a teddy bear. They had posts that pushed into washer thingies (technical term).

Trying to do it once the hippo was completely sewn made me want to kill people, so I did a little surgery and took out a seam around the eyes. Then Andrew muscled the eyes into place.

The hippo, now finished, sprang to life on the dining room table. This made Nocturne the cat furious as she gets in trouble for being on the table.

So we went outside.

She visited the stokesia...

...and the coneflowers...

...played hide and go seek...

...reveled in getting to be a hippo on a bird's back rather than the usual other way around...

...contemplated living in one of my planters--to be fair, she looked great with that mix of colors...

...hung out in the hydrangeas...

...checked out some petunias...

...and ended her afternoon smelling some coleus.

Her name is Violet, and she is beautiful.