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Woo hoo - new project time! I'm excited and it should be fun, too .... crochet, not knitting.

My little great-nieces got 4-H lambs last Friday. The lambs have never been handled before, so they are pretty wild - their mom is helping them out - she's won blue ribbons showing sheep before, when in college. So far, the lambs come up to them for food (bucket/hand) & they are able to reach out & brush shavings off their coat, rub them a little. Halter training started yesterday - it's a "rodeo", but progress is being made. The girls will be participating in a 4-H show with their sheep the end of April.

The girls named their sheep (both boys ... i.e. 'wethers', castrated males) Acorn & Persimmon. Acorn is sort of brown & while at first glance Persimmon appears 'white' (especially in contrast to Acorn), he's more of a light gray. Both have black 'points' - faces and legs.

First picture they sent me of Acorn (left) & Persimmon (right):

I saw a pattern for a knitted 'bobble' sheep pillow and fell in love with it (scroll down the blog post & check out the 'giant' ones!). One day, maybe I'll do it. In the meanwhile, I saw a pattern for a crochet bobble sheep pillow that is more appropriate in size (and my 'effort') for the girls. The girls are getting new bedrooms (moving into new house next month) & I thought sheep pillows that sort of look like their very first lambs, would be something they'd like. Here's the pattern .... I think it's pretty cute:

Bobble Sheep Pillows

The pattern calls for Loops & Threads Charisma yarn. The only place that sells it around here is Michael's & they have a poor selection, plus I wasn't seeing colors that I liked. When I looked for yarn substitutes, Hobby Lobby's I Love This Yarn Chunky was a good one. The store is less than 10 minutes away, but would they have the colors I settled on? I went this morning .... didn't see the colors I wanted, but making a 2nd pass down the aisle, I spotted a brown chunky-looking yarn on the very bottom shelf (not in the ILTY chunky section I looked at previously). Well, wouldn't you know - it was the 'weathered brown' color I wanted for Acorn .... and nearby was was the "weathered gray" color I wanted for Persimmon! The pattern calls for 4-5 skeins ... I have a gauge issue (tend to be short on height) so I bought 6 skeins of each to make sure I had enough .... bought out both colors! The yarn was 30% off, so I saved $16! Here's a picture of my large (12 skein total) yarn buy/colors:

I looked for pillow forms (round 16") while I was there - no round forms, so I'll probably have to order them. I think I'll put eyes on the sheep heads, too. The heads will be done in black, not the dark gray that was used in the pattern. Since there are no 'legs' on the pillow, I might connect the 2 halves using black ... which would add more of the black 'points' that both sheep have.

I'll probably start crocheting this weekend - can't wait to get started!