Make Way for Ducklings Mr. Mallard

You may have been expecting another duckling if you've been following my progress with my Make Way for Ducklings project. After all there are still four more to make. However, I made a promise to myself that when I reached the half way point of making the ducklings I'd make the father duck who in the story is called Mr. Mallard.

This pattern also comes from Zoomigurumi 7 and in fact is the cover pattern.

I started out using the suggested e hook but the duck was a bit larger than I wanted. I went down to a D hook and was happier with my outcome. The pattern uses worsted weight 4 yarn for this pattern and while I'd considered going down to sport weight yarn the colors made that a bit of a challenge as I didn't have the yarns on hand in sport yarn.

I actually couldn't quite find the warm brown yarn the pattern suggests for the bird's body. I went with the closest I had on hand. I changed the wings by making a complete blue stripe on row 9. I didn't like the partial look so I went with a full blue stripe.

I have some brown variegated yarn I'm going to experiment with using this pattern to create Mother Duck or Mrs. Mallard as she is known in the story. However, in order to get to that I have to finish the last 4 ducklings. I want to be able to mail this package by the end of the month for an October birthday so I do need to keep pushing on because September seems to have crept up so quickly. I really thought I was ahead on these fall deadlines but it appears I will be racing to finish as always.

Make Way for Ducklings Mack

With the completion of Mack we have officially reached the half way point in making ducklings for my Make Way for Ducklings project.

Mack is slightly larger than his siblings and that could have to do with starting with an e hook instead of a D. I had already inserted the eyes and decided not to start over so I finished the duckling with a D hook so he is close in size to his siblings. I'm sure duckling grow at different rates.

I've finally decided on the pattern for The Ugly Duckling which I thought would make a great companion set to this one since I clearly won't need more ducks. I'd been looking at several swan and cygnet patterns but finally settled on the one from Zoomigurumi 6 that I borrowed from the library. That book has a swan and cygnet pattern designed as a set. I'm hoping to finish it before the book needs to go back. While I plan on adding it to my library. I'd rather wait as I've been buying lots of other stuff lately and this could wait if I can finish up with the library copy.