Knut the Viking

Okay . . . . Carolyn DeAngelis didn't name her viking Knut. She named him Vic. But I strayed so liberally from her pattern that I felt dishonest calling him Vic. He looks like a Knut to me. Knut it is.

I liked the idea of her viking pattern. I liked the laces on the legs and the horns on the hat. He just looked too childish to me. And short. I wanted my viking to be a little more menacing. I Googled "viking cartoons" and found this image:

This gave me plenty of inspiration. I gravitated to the one on the bottom right. I liked the addition of the trim to the helmet and I liked the crisscross on the chest and the little skirt thing. Carolyn's pattern just had a shield. While that's a great defense, I felt like Knut was the kind of viking who would like to engage in a little marauding, so I wanted him to have a weapon. I liked the spears that these little guys were holding, so I went with that. I really liked the idea of a beard, but I just felt there wasn't room. A bear would've covered up the chest detailing and gotten in the way of the shield. I went with a big mustache instead.

I also had this really cool new felt that I got at JoAnn Fabrics and I was dying to use it:





Some of it is printed and some is embossed. I think the gray will make a really cool elephant and the zebra . . . . . well, duh! A zebra, of course! The black and brown were a relatively small emboss and looked like animal hide. Perfect for Knut's clothes.

While we're talking about felt, look what my husband got me for Christmas:




That's a 72-sheet sampler and every sheet is a different color. The blues and greens are particularly fantastic.

But I digress. I know your curiosity is killing you, so without further ado . . . . meet Knut!



The silver on the helmet, shield, and spear is the same fabric I used for the Wizard of Oz tin man that I made last year. It's not as thick and stiff as vinyl, but more plastic-like than regular fabric. It's perfect for ornaments. It's hard to see in the photo, but there are brown crisscross lace things on his legs. You can see them really well in person. I love him -- he's one of my favorites!