Candy Cane Reindeer covers

(Goblin is 38 months)

Look what I made, Look what I made! 

I made a little herd of reindeer and you can too - they are scarily easy to make. I've seen ones that involve knitting or crochet and quite frankly I'm not that talented. But these little beauties are made using a knitting nancy (also known as french knitting).

If you have never used a knitting nancy before fear not, I did a post a while ago about how to use one - here.  Each cover took me about 30 minutes and I was being slow and watching TV at the same time, so there is still loads of time to get some of these done before Christmas. (And if you don't have a knitting nancy lying around you can make one using a loo roll with cocktail sticks tapped to the insides to make the posts (two cocktail sticks for each post to provide the gap for your crochet hook).

I realised on the "how to" knitting nancy post I didn't explain how to finish the length so here is a little explanation:
Once you have the length you want you simply cut the yarn with a little tail and thread the tail through the remaining single layer of loops before pulling them off their posts and pulling the tail tight. This closes off the end of the tube. Then use a crochet hook to pull that tail through the tube.

 Eyes and nose can either be stitched on or stuck on. I went for a stitched nose and googley stuck on eyes. You could use a bead or pompoms for a nose and stitched eyes might look more serious but I like my reindeer to be a bit goofy.

Finally the antlers are just bent pipecleaners threaded through the knitting. I didn't have brown ones so I used yellow ones and dyed them with brown food colouring.

And they hang on the tree with no string needed.

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