Here he is:

Felted Hedgehog

He looks so prickly in the book, but the two times I’ve been lucky enough to hold a little hedgehog, they haven’t been so spiky. Both times were in Germany. The first was when I got to stroke the belly of a little baby hedgehog at a hedgehog care class I took. Although it’s illegal there to keep them as pets, if they weigh under a certain amount as winter sets in, people can take them in and care for them until spring. A friend of my mother’s even had one living in her bathtub one winter. As an animal-obsessed 13-year-old, I took the class in preparation for the little baby hedgehog I was sure I would find that fall.

I didn’t find a baby hedgehog that fall. My next hedgehog encounter was almost eight years later in a park in Berlin. We had spent almost every evening over the previous year in this park, but that night was our going away party. Our friends, their dogs, and our own beloved dog Bogie, were there, and we were reminiscing, grilling, laughing and mourning the end of our wonderful year in Berlin. It was already dark when the dogs focused in on the bushes behind us. When we investigated, we discovered a cute and snuffly little hedgehog. We carried him out of the dogs’ reach, admiring him a moment before giving him his freedom.

Tomorrow will be the last mitten critter — the badger. I promise I don’t have any nostalgic badger tales to tell, so come back and see the badger with the rest of the critters in their mitten home!

Happy crafting!

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