the story behind the crochet sheep

I don’t think I told you the story behind the crochet sheep?  Well.  My least favourite thing about crocheting amigarumi is the last step when you have to sew the itty bitty pieces altogether.  Half the time you get the bits stitched on and then hold it up to look at it and one leg is sticking out at a strange angle, or the head is sloping sideways or some such nuisancey thing like that.  Well, not so with the little sheep for my Nativity set!  For once I got all the bits sewn on and held it up to look at it, and he just looked cute and charming, just like in the picture above.

Until I put him down on the table to stand up.

He nose dived forward immediately and stayed that way.

So that was such a shame.  Well after firstly being annoyed at the pattern for not telling me to stuff a small weight into his back body, I realised I was going to have to unpick the last round of stitches and insert a small heavyish something inside him.  The challenge was that I had already enclosed the ends and unpicking was not going to be an easy job.

After much struggling (and feeling very sorry for the poor little animal to have such a rude operation inflicted on him) I did finally manage to insert a small pebble, and thankfully got him all stitched up again so no-one would ever know. 

Except you and me!

I guess I should have suspected he would be top heavy, I just didn’t think of it.  Did I mention that I also altered the underneaths of each adult figurine in the Nativity set so that they would stand upright easier, and not wobble over so like the first one I tried did.  I also inserted a flat pebble into the base of each one before the final few rounds of stitches as a little weight.  And I am very happy with the end result!  If you’re quick you can buy it on my Etsy shop!