Making a river otter for Maggie, our dragon boat tiller. She’s an otter person.

The instructions for knitting up are good, with clear illustrations. It’s the final finish work that needs more detail.

I was having a hard time with the chin seam. I ended up doing a couple more rows with decreases at the bottom of the chin to extend it a little and take up some of the slack. On the last row I did K2tog across and that worked.

There were no real instructions on how to do the whiskers. I tried several times with sewing thread and couldn’t find a way to fasten them that suited me, so I left them off.

I used size 8 plastic safety eyes for a bright, beady-eyed look, and stitched the nose.