The Stork!

A couple of weeks ago M H sent me a photo he took with his cell phone in the middle of the night on the OB floor at the hospital.  It was  a darling mobile of a stork holding a cute baby bear in a blanket.  I had been invited to a baby shower and thought how delightful it would be to make this.  I went onto Ravelry and put "stork" in the search engine.  There were MANY stork patterns, including the exact one that MH sent me, so of course I downloaded it immediately.

Thinking cap on, I decided that a nice wool stork would not be the thing for a new baby.  I also had thought not to make a mobile, imagining that the nursery was all set up and another mobile would be redundant, so a toy stork for the baby was what I decided would be just the thing.

Starting in immediately with some soft white washable acrylic yarn, I made pretty quick progress.  As I arrived at the head, I had to hold off because the pattern required stuffing the head before moving on to the beak, and I did not have any conveniently located stuffing (not in workroom, not in cellar, not in garage, maybe in attic but being too scared to go up the tiny pull-down stair and not wanting to involve others, I decided to pick up a new bag at the store...) so I had to stop for the weekend. 

As I was thinking over the weekend I decided to make some alterations in the pattern, particularly the wings.  Because the original pattern is intended to be a mobile and have chopsticks to give it stability, I realized that I really did need to make changes, so after acquiring the stuffing, using the stuffing, and completing the project, this is the final result--a little silly, but just the thing for the baby to hold in her hot little fist (by the neck, which I decided not to stuff for just that purpose):

Stork lying on the MacBook, ready to deliver!