Every summer, we have a tradish - or I do - of knitting something for the girls while they're away on their camping trip, usually animals of some kind. Not sure when this started, but apparently it led to squeals of delight: "Look what Nanny made!'.
This is the first time I have knitted food for them (though I did an assortment of vegetables in a basket for their Mum): ice cream cones, and they're harder than they look. There are two components (I won't tell you what they are, eejit), the bottom half usually being harder. Displaying them without them falling over is a challenge. I used those plastic molds that you use to make juice popsicles. They had to be good for something.
The element of surprise in these projects is crucial, though I never get to see it. This all started small and escalated, a little alarmingly. A couple of years ago I made a tableau called Snail Valley (still reverberating in memory) that I am particularly proud of:
This is only a tiny percentage of it, as I photographed the snails before I knitted the leaves, branches, mushrooms, rocks, trees, etc. that completed the scene. I don't know how many snails I completed, probably at least ten, all different from each other. I must say they're cool. The pattern had the snail's eyes in a jolly, winky position on their head. SNAILS DO NOT HAVE THEIR EYES ON THEIR HEADS. They loll out on gooey, freaky stalks, the ends of their slimy retractable antennae.
This is the Megasnail, about ten inches long, commissioned for an 8th birthday.
The body was harder to make than the shell.
Oh well.
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