A Tale of a Chicken (aka: Nancy Challenge #1)

Once upon a time, there was a girl who noticed a distressing absence of chickens in her life. Not one to sit around and witness this tragedy continue longer than necessary, she decided to bring one to existence.

After a small dose of KnitPicks cotton, some fiberfill, and a fair amount of seaming together, Chicken entered the scene.


At first, this girl didn’t know what to make of him. She followed the (sparse) directions thoroughly, but his head was a little floppy, and that neck connection wasn’t the most attractive; some might speculate that he lacked proper support in that department. However, after two days had passed, she learned this allowed him to turn his head rakishly, so she decided it really did add to his personality.


With the satisfactory closure of this mission, her life is more complete.

This also completes her first Nancy Challenge (there are two other projects in various degrees of doneness and satisfaction that are currently in a holding pattern, plus Lent this year is composed of charity knitting, so we’ll see what’s next on the docket re: Nancy books).

The Nancy Challenge

I’m toying around with an unofficial challenge, spurred on by Liz’s example. She had purchased 10 knitting and crochet books and vowed to make at least one project from each before the end of 1000 days. I keep examining the books I gained from Rachel, and I’ve earmarked several projects out of each. I don’t know if I’ll end up making one out of each book, and some books will offer several projects I want to make, but I think it will average to around that. And I certainly won’t limit myself to 1000 days – some of these projects are pretty intense and this may keep me company for lo these many years. Nevertheless, I think this is a fitting tribute to Rachel entrusting me with these books that were treasured and put to good use by Nancy, a gifted knitter. In the spirit of naming this undertaking, it will be aptly called the Nancy Challenge.

I started a child’s sweater out of Alice Starmore’s Celtic Collection, but after getting about five inches into the front panel, I am going to rip out. Turns out that I didn’t like the complementary color I spontaneously grabbed. The blue base with the white accent was too dated for my tastes, so I quickly knit up a green baby sweater so I knew how much of that yarn was leftover if I choose to stick with using a complementary color instead of switching to all blue. Turns out there’s plenty remaining, and the green should do a better job of blending with the blue.

Here’s a preview of that project with the old blue and white colors:

And here’s the green sweater I made so I could snatch the leftover yarn:

I’m also contemplating what solid color to use for the lacy Latvian socks in the Folk Socks book. I will also tackle the striped Guernsey ones so they can serve as a reminder of the delightful Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society book I so enjoyed this spring.

I don’t think I’m doing too badly – three concrete projects from two books already decided, albeit still not cast on.