Have you any wool? If you do, it’ll be great for this pattern!

I encourage you to select an excellent or unusual yarn for the wool bits project. With 90-100 yards of a bulky-weight yarn needed for Wooly, this is an excellent project for that hand spun you’ve been hoarding, the novelty yarn you want to try, the art yarn you don’t know what to do with, or the luxury yarn that you’ve been craving. But you really really really ought to SWATCH. That way you’ll know if you need to carry your fancy yarn with something to make it a solid enough fabric for a toy. The Wooly parts of the example sheep are worked in ‘Fusion’ (buttermilkcottage.etsy.com) carried with Rowan’s Pure Life Organic cotton. The contrast is Classic Elite’s Sprout (you’ll need 100 yards of contrast).

If you aren’t feeling all that brave, she looks great in more straight forward yarns too! Sheep are around 14” knit to gauge, but that’ll vary depending on yarn selection.

There’s only one trick to this pattern once you sort out your materials, so it’s a great project for those either beginning or comfortable with working in the round. It is written for double pointed needles, but Magic Loop will work for everything but the small bits where you work back and forth. You’ll need to be able to graft (kitchener) as well as increase and decrease. There are tutorials available on my blog. Lots of pictures and cheerful support are included with this well-written, thorough pattern.