Knitted Cabled Owls

Last fall, shortly after moving up to Ohio, I took the kids to visit Mark's aunt and uncle who live just up the street. While I was there I noticed this really cool potholder hanging on the wall and used my phone to take a picture of it. Not long after, I mentioned it to my mother-in-law and she said she had one just like it. Apparently one of them had purchased both at a craft show and given one to the other. My mother-in-law couldn't remember who had purchased them though.
My mother-in-law had used hers, resulting in quite a bit more wear and tear. But she gave me hers and I used it as a model to figure out how to make a cabled owl. You would think I had written down what I did, but actually I'm going to have to make another and pay more attention to writing it down.I made mine out of a small bit of dishcloth cotton that was leftover from something else. I never bothered to put eyes on it either since it was just a test piece. So this little piece of knitting marks my first ever attempt at cabling as well as my first attempt to look at finished knitting and try to recreate the stitches.

Apparently, cabled animals were quite the thing for a while. I've heard of a set of children's vest patterns that featured a yoke of cabled animals and that even have the backs of the animals on the backs of the vests. Then I think there was a set of baby blankets and such that were also published. If anyone has any of these patterns, I'd love to borrow them for a bit. I think the animals would make a really cute baby blanket (animals in squares alternated with plain squares). Or one of those knitted cubes with different animals on each side.