A week before Christmas I saw this post by Julie at Knitted Bliss and I just knew I needed to knit my mom a donkey for Christmas, but not just any donkey.

Nestor The Long Eared Donkey

Nestor the Long Eared Donkey, from my mom’s favorite Christmas movie.

Unfortunately the donkey pattern Julie used was from a nativity pattern book I didn’t have time to order, so I went on a mad search for a realistic donkey pattern, which took me to the etsy shop cakescakescakes, where I found a pattern for Dinah the Donkey!

Dinah the Donkey

Looks simple enough, right? I pulled some gray and brown yarn from my stash, packed up some size 3s, and saved it for my 13 hour Christmas Eve trip from Minneapolis to Allendale MI.

Pieces of Dinah the Donkey, Try 1

I got this far before completely running out of yarn somewhere between Milwaukee and Chicago. I GROSSLY underestimated the size of this donkey. There are no finished measurements on the pattern and I just assumed it was like 8″ tall. Oh. So. Wrong.

Pieces of Dinah the Donkey, Try 2

I went out and bought some yarn and started over. From the beginning. With Patons Kroy Sock yarn in Flax. All those pieces. It still hurts to look at.

The pattern was very easy to follow and well written, despite how it looks. Because it looks like a total mess! It’s a vintage pattern so the instructions are all run together, and it’s a little challenging to keep your place because each leg piece uses the first leg piece instructions. It’s a lot of, go back to *** and follow it till **** then go back to * and follow until ****.

But little did I know that the real challenge was after knitting all the pieces.

Introducing... Nestor!

While I recognize that this donkey is very cute, JESUS was it a pain in the ass to put together. It took me more than SIX HOURS to seam together, and a lot of that had to do with the fact that the instructions for putting the donkey together are for seaming on the inside, which I don’t like doing.

Oh, Hi Nestor!

But I figured it out and finished him up!

Mods: The mane is knit as you go, but I left that out because Nester has that big lump of hair on his head and no main. And, of course, I knit those ears a lot longer!

Nestor Can't Really Stand Up

He Can Sit, Though!

So, if you are up for a challenge and really need a donkey in your life, I would heartily recommend this pattern! Just know that it will take you a million years to seam together.

Merry slightly late Christmas, Mom! I would only deal with all this bullshit for you. And next time I’m going to check the size of a traveling project before just taking it blindly.

Pattern: Dinah the Donkey, from cakescakescakes on Etsy

Yarn: Patons Kroy Sock Yarn in Flax, and old stash yarn in cream

Needles: Size 3 needles throughout

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