Off the hook... Esme Fox

From left to right: Hank, Emma, Esme and Piotr.

I shall probably ask Ella to rename this motley crew at some stage. The names I've mentioned are all from the book 'Edward's Menagerie' but I have an Uncle Esme and I'm not too sure he'd want a fox named after him.

Esme was my first attempt at the tapestry crochet technique. I was never really patient enough to do much intarsia when I was more of a knitter so I've managed to keep tapestry crochet at arms length until now. I frogged the first attempt and then ignored the stitch counts for the second attempt. That went much better but the colour change row ends look different on his left profile than on his right. Not that I mind much. I'm casually flicking through the one book I have with tapestry crochet projects in it. Just maybe, when I'm feeling in need of a challenge.

The book shows the fox in two colours, the main colour of which isn't very foxy if truth be told. My fox yarn came from Northallerton, it's Debbie Bliss Blue Faced Leicester DK (Burnt Orange). It was a discounted ball because it's been discontinued. There was only one ball in this colour and because I didn't want to run out mid fox I decided to add dark grey socks to all four legs and an off white neck band. I'm quite pleased with this more colourful version; there's no mistaking he's a fox.

I've got the hedgehog on the go now. His body and limbs are complete. Once he's finished I really must return to the slightly less exciting garments I've started. I've been making a few small fun items in between hedgehog limbs and the odd row of pink cardigan. A small purse, two flower brooches and a t shirt yarn bowl have been completed, the latter when I disappeared into my little craft room intending to do some tidying up.

Talking of which, Jake and I have completed phase one of the long overdue transformation of his room from ten year old play den to teenage hang out. The master plan involves a massive sliding wardrobe door miracle that will hide a huge amount of sports wear, football boots, cricket boots, trainers, vans, converse, you name it. All currently size twelve, ugh. Non sports wear will take up a much smaller section and finally school books and Xbox/PlayStation games will fill up the remainder. His life is school, sport and gaming, in that order. Phase two looks set to be an even bigger challenge. The hard part is packing up favourite toys and games knowing that childhood as we knew it is definitely over.