My grandson Isaac came in one day clutching a crocheted zebra, instantly recognisable as the Toft pattern. His mum went on to explain that whilst he had taken a shine to it, it actually belonged to her step daughter, for whom it had been lovingly made by her grandma who had recently died, so this little zebra was extra special to her. So I just had to make one for Isaac, so that this one could be returned to its rightful owner.

Firstly I would say: I love this zebra! However, as others have said, working to the pattern it is not quite as it looks in the book. Most notably different is the head: when looking for placement of the eyes, I could see that the white stripe in the picture was forward facing, so the eyes work well there. Following the pattern, however, the white stripe is actually higher up on the head (too high) or lower down in the start of the nose (not forward facing). And working black eyes on a black stripe would obviously not work. I had already worked the head so compromised with the eyes, embroidering blue eyes across a black and white stripe.

The other issue is the end of the nose: the pattern stops abruptly at 12dc, leaving quite an open space - fine for stuffing, but not a good finish. So I stuffed the head at this point, then crocheted a further round of 2dc in each stitch, fastened off and ran yarn around these sts to draw up, closing the hole. This worked well, and gave me the extra length to the nose that is apparent in the pictures.

I wasn’t sure which way up to put the ears: should they be pointed (fasten off point upwards) or rounded (fasten off point downwards)? I went for pointed, threading my yarn down to the bottom to attach to the head.

Whilst I love the finished item, I wouldn’t say I loved the process: so many colour changes can be tedious and time consuming. While working the zebra, I played about with techniques for the most seamless/jogless colour change. I realised after a while that the thing that made the most difference was the tightness of the yarn I had changed from: whereas I was thinking it needed to be pulled as tight as possible to hide the join, this only served to highlight the join, providing a very visible skewed jog. Once I realised this, I thought of it as similar to knitted fairisle: keeping the yarn tight results in a bunched, unattractive look. So I went loose, and along with the other techniques it worked a treat. You can see in my pics the difference between the body (full of jogs) and the leg (pretty much jog-free).

So, the other key techniques for jog-free colour changes:

1. On the last stitch before the colour change, use the new colour to pull through the end of the stitch. This will give you a ‘v’ (chain shape - top of dc) in the new colour, which will mean the next stitch will be a full stitch in the new colour.
2. Replace the first dc of the new colour with a slip stitch. You only need to do this for the first round, after that continue in dc as you would do normally.

And that’s it!

Despite these issues, which are very easy to spot and work around, I do love it and would definitely make again. Isaac, I know, will love it