Y’know, I’m not one for soft toys, really. I made Paul a knitted dalek this time last year, and a few years before I fudged together a crocheted Totoro for some friends I stayed with for a week, after a disastrous camping trip left us unexpectedly stranded in Adelaide.

Most toy patterns do nothing for me, though there’s a particular elephant pattern that makes me shudder because it looks like someone has chopped off his trunk. With the recent owl craze, however I have to admit I found some of the very simple ones with button eyes cute. But I kept thinking, ‘now if that was a cat, I’d probably knit it’.

Well, look what I just found.

I want to knit this. I want to knit it now. I want to knit twenty of these in different colours and line them up on a window sill, looking outside, some with their tails curled, some with them hanging down.

Just goes to show, there’s always an exception to the rule.

Though it would take a very exceptional pattern to make me want to knit lace shawls. Or pants.