Since I have a real liking for nature’s most peculiar, weird, mysterious or misunderstood underdogs I decided to design some of them for anyone who wants to get to know these natural weirdo’s a little better!

The aardvark is a nocturnal native of Africa. With their pig-like bodies, rabbit-like ears, anteaters’ tongues and kangaroo tails they definitely don’t fit in just any box. Aardvarks used to be categorized as family members of the South American anteaters, but now they’ve been placed in an order of their own, basically making them planetary orphans.
They feed almost exclusively on termites, causing up to 50.000 fatalities per night! However, they might make an exception for the Cucumis humifructus, a fruit known as the aardvark cucumber or aardvark pumpkin.
Thankfully this knitted aardvark won’t secretly go raiding your fruit basket or ant farm at night!

This aardvark measures 23 cm from nose to tail. It’s a medium level knit. And, although assembly of the knitted parts might be a bit tricky, it is explained in detail in the pattern. Some minor intarsia work, knitting in the round and flat and transferring of stitches is asked for. Parts are of the body are kept on spare needles and are then integrated seamlessly into the work.

It was knitted on 2.25 mm double pointed needles (UK 13, US 1) in Lana Grossa Alpaca Peru 200 (211) dark brown, Lana Grossa Mohairlana (13) black brown, Tréliz Hestia in apricot, Rico Luxury Lace (002) pink and Lopi Einband (886) beige heather. Soft toy filling and pipe cleaners were used to construct the aardvark.