introducing olympic tortoise

Allow me to introduce you to Olympic Tortoise…

Isn’t he the Most Extremely Cheerful Crocheted Animal that you have seen in a long time? I think so.

I had ever such fun making him. I’d entirely forgotten how much I like crochet. You can stop in the middle of a row, drop your needles, pull out half your stitches, and you don’t end up in an infuriating tangle like I often do with knitting.

I made Olympic Tortoise while the olympics were on. I hadn’t intended to watch the olympics – I’ve never taken an interest before. But they were on in the background when I visited people, and I slowly got caught up in the excitement, and before I knew it I was glued to the sofa, watching people running and jumping and swimming and twirling with such enthusiasm that I wanted to be a Real Athlete myself (hmm… not likely… although this marathon is in 4 weeks – eek!).

Anyway, I settled for crochet, and the little hexagons were so jolly that I very nearly did enough to make a whole blanket. That might just be a wintery project.

(I do realise that Olympic Tortoise doesn’t look quite like the original picture… and you could say (although I’m sure you wouldn’t be that mean) that his face looks more like a crocodile’s (I don’t quite know what happened). However, he’s still the most cheerful crocheted tortoise I’ve ever come across, and doubles up nicely as a pillow too. Hooray!