isn't she a cutie? she's actually my v2, as v1 is still in production. she's a belated kinda-valentines pressie for M's best friend. we're a non-valentines household usually, but they made cards at school, M chose to give hers to us (as school intended, i presume) but T gave hers to M. cue T getting rather upset that no-one had given her a card. M made a card the next day, rather out-of-genre since it was of a tropical island (she thought it up and made the whole thing by tearing and sticking paper herself, it was fabby). but T had admired the octopus i was working on, so we thought she might like one of her very own, in pink, her favourite colour.

the pattern (here) was a joy to work, up to a point. there was no indication of the finished number of stitches per round, so when i thought i may have screwed up there was no way to check. the way the legs curl is just so damn cute, but the pattern was rather opaque when it came to the part where you attach the underside of the legs to the underside of the body. since each is done as the leg is worked, it's not possible to just rip back the bits you realise are totally wrong without undoing the entire underside of the legs as well. i still haven't figured a way of working them i'm totally happy with, and i got no reply to a plea for help from the pattern maker.

yay for working to the quality control standards of 4 year olds is all i can say. still, everyone who's seen them wants one, so i'll have plenty of time to practice and work out a method i'm happy with.