They said it couldn’t be done… and they were very nearly right! But, after many months (six-ish) of faffing around with graph paper, intarsia and royal blue wool, my knitted peacock is complete!

I got the idea for Norman when I was in a garden centre a couple of years ago. They had a peacock doorstop with a large fanned tail and I wondered if it was possible to make a knitted version. It took some serious knitters’ maths (i.e. calculator + scribbling + swearing…) but, eventually, I worked out how to make a tail that would fit snugly around the back end of the body.

My original plan was to use intarsia or fair isle for the tail motifs but they ended up being too fiddly so I opted for separate motifs instead. They didn’t seem quite glitzy enough on their own so I added some metallic gold thread and, suddenly, the tail feathers came alive!

I know I’m biased but I think Norman is pretty special and could easily go on to become an heirloom. I opted for fairly basic embroidery but there’s no reason why you can’t go to town on the tail motifs, adding more intricate stitches, beads or sequins to make something incredibly ornate and glitzy. And we haven’t even talked about sparkly wool!