The fourth animal I completed in my Big ‘Knit Your Own Zoo’ Sponsored Challenge was Lion.

I normally leave this for the bottom of the post but I’m going to say it straight away this week – it would be really, really, lovely if you could visit and share my JustGiving page. All this crafting is for a cause. I’m trying to raise as much money as I can for the World Wildlife Fund so I’d really appreciate any help you can give in reaching my target. Remember, before the start of this project I’d never knitted a single thing before. This is a completely brand new skill & the patterns are getting progressively more challenging!

But back to Lion… I found matching these colours of yarn the most difficult so far, so my Lion definitely has a much more orange mane than the one in the book. Hopefully it just makes him a little more jaunty. I like to think so. I’m definitely getting quicker at basic knit & purl stitch. I really noticed on his legs & sides how much quicker they were finished, especially compared to Polar Bear of Week 1. It took me about two hours to knit one leg back then…

To complete this animal I had to master the Loopy Stitch. It was used for his mane which you then trim once he’s all stitched together. This is definitely the most fiddly, time-consuming stitch I’ve learnt so far. I did feel a little bit like throwing the pattern across the room when it told me to K22Loopy Stitch. My hands really ached after that.

Here’s what the World Wildlife Fund say about African Lions on their website –
“Lions are powerful and majestic, but they’re incredibly vulnerable to loss of habitat and conflict with people.
About 30,000-35,000 African lions remain in the wild today. Numbers have plummeted by around 30% in the past 20 years, and over 40% of their key populations are in decline. The International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies them as ‘vulnerable’ on its red list.”
The WWF aims to help Lions by providing them with secure and protected areas, and learning more about their needs and behaviour.

This week I’ve been knitting Meerkat…