amimono no monogatari: It Started With a Tail

My lil' one is either a dog or has a destructive streak in her. As you know, for her birthday, I had made her a bunny with a cool rainbow tail. Well, apparently, like any curious little girl, she wanted to see if the "fluffy" part was really fluffy and started to pull yarn out.

Her mother was not pleased.

To make matters worse, she tried to eat the yarn (she's a mouther - everything goes into that girl's mouth! 😱😳😒). So, I was tasked to make another tail.

I had some pink netting that I was using to store yarn in (and A LOT of it). Thinking that it may make a cute bunny tail (& possibly something she couldn't tear apart and eat), I created this:

Then I looked at the rest of my "stash" of neeting and thought, "Hmmmm ... 🤔 What if I could make more "balls"?" So I proceeded to spend the next 2 hrs making this:

Then, I thought, "Oh! Wouldn't it be cute if she could roll them around like snowballs ..." 🤔 So, then I found this pattern and started making "snowballs" instead.

Using my Denise 4mm (US6) needles and my mystery Cream yarn, I pretty much followed the pattern but needed to expand it after Row 12 where I continued in pattern until there were 30 sts (KFB, K8); then continued on with the pattern for 8 rows, except instead of K2TOG, I SSK instead. Then for the decreasing rows, I started at SSK, K6, I skipped all the K rows.

Then, I thought, "Well, we live somewhere where there's no snow. Wouldn't it be more fun if she had coloured "snowballs"? So, I dug through my stash and I ended up making these:

A Red Sparkly one: I followed the pattern I used for the Cream one except: I also K every other row as I decreased; as it was a little tight, did 2 rows of K when I reached the SSK, K2 portion before doing the final decreases and binding off.

A Mint one: I followed the same pattern as the Red Sparkly one except: I used my Denise US8 needles; P everything instead of K; only went up to PFB, P6 before I started to decrease; skipped the P row after SSP, P3 before binding off.

A Piggy Pink one: I followed the same pattern as the Mint one except: I skipped the 2 P rows after PFB, P6; started to decrease until I got to SSP, P4; then skipped to SSP, P2; SSP and bound off.

A Gecko Green one: I followed the same pattern as the Red Sparkly one except: I only went up to KFB, K7 before decreasing (in pattern) and binding off.

A Sunshine Yellow one: I followed the same pattern as the Piggy Pink one except: I skipped the P rows on the decreasing round after SSP, P4 before binding off.

A Brown one: I followed the same pattern as the Gecko Geen one except: I used my Denise US9 needles; went up to KFB, K5; K 2 rows then started decreasing

A Sky Blue one: I followed the same pattern as the Sunshine Yellow one except: I purled up to PFB, P5; skipped the P row and immediately started decreasing; then bound off.

Viola! Now, she has a bunch of (not so) "snowballs" to play with (and hopefully, not break anything in the house!😉😁). I hope she enjoys them!🤞😍

Here's what it looks like:

So ... you must be wondering ... well, what about the actual tail that started all of this? What does it look like now? Well, that was an adventure in and of itself! First, I drew out a picture of how big the original pom pom was so I could get an idea of what it would look like:

Then I proceeded to knit what I graphed out. However, it was a miniscule tail! It was only slightly bigger than Bunny's eyes! 🤦. So, I ripped it out and multiplied three (3) times; it came out better but I could quite shape it to a round tail ...😒🤦. Hubs was watching me work on this and said: "Why don't you just make it like the snowballs?". Eureka! 🎉🤦 Why didn't I think of that?! So, I proceeded to make a rainbow (snowball) tail and here's how it went: