This is my second yarn bomb of Mr. Steer, the first, in 2015, looking like this. The second is done in the University of Texas colors. Both were placed during the coldest snap of the year in hopes of making people laugh in spite of bitter weather.

I sourced sale yarn in 2015, then used an Addi Express to knit tubes for the horn and leg warmers. Doing these by hand would have taken a very long time, but even cranking on the machine seemed never-ending. I worried about the diameter being too small to fit in the end. The horns are so high off the ground you can’t measure the beast.

I was lucky enough to get the original knitwear back from the first decoration, and I reused the pompoms. I love the original pompoms as they had self felted in the wind and rain in a very open fashion. You could never get this result yourself in a machine.

After knitting the tubes, the four leg warmers had to be cut, steeked and reinforced with machine zig zag. I also single crocheted an edge around them to give them a more uniform and professional look and each leg warmer had 8 long crochet chains added to enable them to be stretched and tied around each leg.

Getting these on, is another story. I promised my husband this would be the last time, as he used a ladder, a gripping tool and a hockey stick all of which he had to climb and extend to the maximum of his reach.

This took a long, long time, and in the end it fits and look pretty good. I’m pleased with it--the only drawback is the UT burnt orange does not stand out well against the red steer very well, but luckily the white stripes do.