For my tiny birthday my mom made me this fox

We recently celebrated J's 4th (or "tiny") birthday. This was his present on the morning of the big day.

I don't really know what he meant, "his tiny birthday," but it was very cute. And to celebrate the tiny-ness of it all I did make him this fox. I wanted to do something from Knitted Animals, a different pattern than I've been working on lately (not to mention faster), but he wanted something like previous stuffies I've made. So, I just improvised a few modifications to a Debi Birkin pattern. I think I added length to the face of the cat pattern and then just added increases to the cats tail and then sharp decreases at the end of it. It didn't really look foxish at all until the nose and ears went on.

This time I went with non embroidered eyes, yes, plastic! I tend to enjoy the simplicity of these handmade items. My hand knit toys and my home sewn cloth diapers, I want them to be "pure" and perfect. I like to think that if I were to bury them in the yard there wouldn't be bits of plastic left hundreds and thousands of years later. I like them to impact the earth in a very minimal way. But I am breaking my own rules this time for a damn cute little nose I got from 6060. Curse you etsy! I totally stocked up adorable plastic bits at that store.

Lately, when he is feeling extra affectionate, J has been wearing these almost too small woolies I made last summer. (Another color blending experiment.) He sings to me: "Look what I'm wearing Mom..." And he has been dragging his fox and other hand made gifts around with him for the last week. So, this time around, the extra effort that went into hand making something felt very worthwhile.

Happy Birthday little imp.