Placing a pair of eyes, a nose, and some teeth on the face of your furry knitted friend can be a surprisingly horrifying experience. It is no mere matter of eyes either side of the nose, and teeth below it. The wrong eye colour, the wrong distance between the teeth, and you can end up staring into the face of a twitchy wild-eyed psycho chipmunk instead of the beauteous beaver you intended.
Knitting the body of a toy should be the hard part. After all those M1s and K2togs you should be left with something that resembles the toy you wish to create in some way. It is just missing the little features that will bring the beast to life. Putting a face on the thing at the end with a tapestry needle and a couple of different colours should be as easy as falling off a log, yes? Well no.
The best plan is not to do anything you can’t take back. Try a few looks out before you commit to anything.
Sew the eyes on loosely. An important thing to remember is that some glass and plastic eyes change colour against different backgrounds (especially if they are see-through). You could end up with a pair of evil peepers that follow you around the room threateningly, just by picking the wrong colour.
Try just sewing outlines of the nose and mouth to see what they might look like, rather than going the whole hog, and then having to undo it all because you don’t like it. Depending on your fabric you might try drawing them on with tailor's chalk instead.
On the other hand it can make you feel a bit guilty gouging out the little thing’s eyes to make it prettier. And some people may prefer the looks of the crazy-eyed creature over the furry friend. I sort of missed mine after he was beautified a bit, even if he did look like it would be a bad idea to feed him after midnight.
