Foxy Mr. Fox

Like my new scarf?

My friend Jack has a beautiful, vintage, real fox-fur stole. I don’t know how you feel about real fur, but my opinion is new fur is bad, old fur is fine. After all, no amount of chucking red paint at someone is going to bring an Edwardian fox back to life. Still, I wouldn’t want to wear a real one - no matter how old it is other people might not care about age and might chuck paint at you anyway.

Did I just lose half my followers? I can feel a draught…

Anyway, I decided to knit one to avoid all that. I had a root around Ravelry and found the cutest thing – Mr Fox stole my heart by Tiny Owl Knits. Not free (unless you have access to the April 2011 Yarn Forward) but definitely worth the pennies.

I decided to make it more of a scarf than a stole so the front of my neck wouldn’t get cold. To that end I knit the body wider by adding more increases, and longer by just carrying on until it wrapped around my neck once. I also made the tail longer and wider in the same way and added two extra legs.

The pattern is basically a flat scarf with knitted on legs and a separately made head which is stuffed and sewn on afterward. Unfortunately it curled like mad and looked a bit daft so I seamed the whole thing, including the tail. Glad I made it that bit wider!

To make it more like a real fox-fur I added a clip under the chin so it could grab it’s own tail and stay closed.

And here it is on. Sorry for the poor photo. A combination of the mirror and a desire to avoid getting my own face in shot made for shoddy work.

I wore it for the first time today and got lots of compliments!

I used a random 100g ball of Cygnet worsted I found on Ebay in a rust colour and held it together with a strand of copper-coloured Adriafil kid mohair to give it a bit of fuzz. It took one ball of each to finish. The black and white bits are scraps of merino I had left over from other projects.

I think everyone should make one!

Beccy

P.s Jack is sensible enough not to wear his real fur out of the house.