Okay, so the next time I say “Who needs a pattern for that?” somebody remind me about this.
A bit of background. A good friend of ours frequently brings ponies into the conversation at random, but usually in discussions of things we’d like to have (“And I want a pony also, too!”). Without getting too far afield of the knitting part of the story, she recently quit smoking after … I’m not sure how many years, and is approaching her 28th day. This, my friends, is a big da*n deal as anyone who’s ever quit will tell you. So Wendy and I decided that if there were EVER a time that she should get that pony she’s always talking about, this was it. But we didn’t want just any old pony… oh no. We wanted an extra sparkly pony! And frankly, most of the patterns we found were pretty boring (and involved a lot of sewing… as toy patterns tend to do). So we mated a sock to an eggplant (like ya do) and created a psychedelic pony… named Madge. Which will NO doubt be a part of our shared lexicon until the day we die.
The problem with just making sh… stuff up is that it never [I]quite[/I] looks the same in the world as it does in your head. Plus, if you’re a little fuzzy on the details of how a horse is put together anyway you may wind up with something that more closely resembles the love child of a pig and a sheepdog.
Nevertheless, it turned out to be quite the… thing. And as a bonus I got to try out W&T short rows which prepared me for… not making socks at any point in the near future. It also used up two skeins of Encore chunky in a log forgotten colorway that were hanging around just waiting for a stash buster like this to come along.
You get a better sense of scale from this angle with the seat/railing of the deck in the background. This? Is no small pony. Two full skeins of Encore plus the extra for the “leg warmers” and hooves and decor, and 2+ bags of polyfill. (Which led to conversations like: How’d you spend your weekend? Stuffing fluff up a pony’s butt.)
The “presentation” is scheduled for Wednesday evening when we meet our pal for dinner. And yes, we WILL make her let Madge sit beside her at the restaurant. We’re even contemplating asking for a booster seat.
But next time? I’ll find a pattern I can dress up.