Christmas Sheep

I found this cute little guy on a torn out page of “Country Woman” magazine–from 10 years back.  He’s basically made from scraps of yarn, felt, cardboard and a couple of clothespins. Pretty darn easy too.

Materials Needed:

Heavy cardboard

Ball of white, tan, or black yarn

2 Wooden, spring type clothespins

Scrap of black felt

Scrap of batting

Small bow, or strip of ribbon

1/4 inch bell

Tacky glue

Directions:

Click here or on the pattern itself to print out pattern pieces.

Trace the sheep’s body pattern onto heavy cardboard and cut out. As you can see, I used cardboard from an empty legal pad. It made enough for six sheep…a nice little flock.

Use a permanent marker to color both sides of the cardboard head black–like the pattern shows. Also color the straight ends of the clothespins black up to the hinges. At first, I worried because the marker didn’t color into the lines on the bottom of the clothespins. But every time I saw them, they looked like little stripey socks and it made me smile…so I just left them.

Clip the clothespins onto body where the pattern shows. Push them all the way up until they are securely in place.  I put a dab of glue between the cardboard and the clothespins to keep them stable…for eternity.

Next, wind a small amount of batting around your little sheepy. It will help your yarn go much further.

Start wrapping yarn around the body–starting at the middle. Continue wrapping down the neck until about 1/4 inch of the tip of the nose sticks out.

Wrap figure-eight style around the clothespin legs so the hinges on each is covered. Continue wrapping until your sheep looks nice and fat or your yarn is all gone–whichever. Tuck in end of yarn.

Cut one tail and two ears from black felt. Tacky glue wasn’t doing it for me, so I used my evil glue gun to the stick ears to each side of the sheep’s face and to put the tail where it belongs. String a bell onto same colored yarn and tie around sheepy’s neck and tuck the knot into “fleece” at the top of the head. Glue a bow on–wherever you’d like. There you have it–incredibly low maintenance sheep. Unheard of.