Hilariously, I found out later that when she learned to talk, the owner of the monsters dubbed the mama “Tiger No Tail” and would make adorable growling noises as she played with her.

• Aaand… I finished the eyes! Don’t know why I put it off took no time at all once I got going. Presented them to
their new owner in person (yay!) and I think she likes them! Photos as soon as I unearth them from my camera.

• Finishing procrastination strikes again! All that’s standing between these adorable monsters and their intended recipient is me embroidering a few eyes. Sigh. Must get 1st-birthday-present to baby before she is 18mos!

Notes & Mods

• Used jogless stripes à la TechKnitter. Moved start of round on Mama monster because I was afraid of vertical pulling, but this created its own set of complications (managed to hide the diagonal under her pocket).
• As I did for my Purple Puppy, knit arms from the bottom up, using Judy’s Magic Cast-On, then stuffed and Kitchenered them closed. Then attached with invisible horizontal seam.
• Kitchenered the top of Baby monster’s head, rather than doing a 3-needle bind-off. I like the seamless look better, and kind of wish I’d done this on Mama monster’s head (though the seam does give her head shape more structure).
• Eyes: For the Mama monster, I whipstitched on some small felt circles. For Baby monster, I brought 3 strands of embroidery floss up through the center of a tiny felt circle, then embroidered “spokes” across in every direction until the felt was entirely covered. Gave the baby’s eyes a nice 3-D effect!
• After all the drying time, some of the glue got a little crusty around the edges of the mouths -- I didn’t want it to be sharp for the toddler owner, so I carefully snipped off the crusty bits of glue with fine pointed scissors. In retrospect, I would have felt safer sewing on the mouths (teensy blanket stitch, maybe?), but I’m pretty sure Ella’s mom can fix them if they should have orthodontic difficulties :-)