FO- Pasha the Penguin

I had meant to blog with abandon over the holidays (from my parent's house in Sudbury, Ontario), but I forgot the cable that allows me to get the pictures from my camera onto my parents computer. So no blogging from my end, although Jen has been doing a bang up job. So, rather than do a giant post that tries to cover everything, I'll do a few small ones over the next few days. First up: this cutie pie, Pasha.
Pattern: Pasha, from Knitty

Needles: 4 mm straights

Yarn: generic craft yarn that I keep specifically for toy knitting

Mods: When sewing up the beak, I tucked a lot of it in (meaning I sewed the seam about four rows in), so that it was pointier. If I had sewn just the seams, it would have been a thicker, rounder beak, and I'm not sure if I would have liked it as much. Also, there is the option of having a tubby penguin or a fairly svelte penguin, and I opted for svelte. Which is still pretty portly, for a penguin. Check out that profile: My stepdad specifically requested a knitted stuffy for Christmas, so he got Pasha. He has since requested two smaller penguins, and a polar bear. Presumably so that we can continue the Christmas-themed photo shoots outside in the front lawn, with the light up candy canes. Who knows, we could make a knitted version of those Christmas Coke commericals with the penguins and the polar bears.

Can I just say how much fun it is to knit stuffies? I love how quick and satisfying they are, and I find that muggles (non-knitters) are always so much more enthusiastic than they ever get over a scarf. I think it's the element of surprise- everyone expects knitters to churn out scarves.