Little Lion Man - a Stuffed Friend

I meant to post this ages ago when I finished the project, but neglected to take a picture back then. I finally got a few pictures, so here it is!

Lions are kind of a "thing" for our family, so it was inevitable that I ended up knitting a little lion this past summer as a baby shower gift for the niece, who arrived this fall. She is pretty cool so far.

This little guy emerged after coming across a pattern pamphlet from Rowan (similar to this one) that I had acquired somewhere along the way. I liked the general shape of the creature in the pattern but abhorred the idea of sewing pieces together, so I modified the pattern to knit it in the round.

I started with knitting the two legs, then joined them to knit the body up to the underarms, increasing as needed fatten up the belly. I knit two arms then joined them to the body and basically decreased to the neck, then increased and decreased again to create the head. The tail was added by picking up stitches on the backside and knitting I-cord for a length.

The body yarn was leftover from several skeins I had used in knitting a baby blanket for a good college friend, and the mane and tail fur, as well as the face detail, came from some sock yarn I had lying around.

Sometimes cuteness explodes from my knitting needles.