The latest knitting creation on a tree stump alongside the River Welland in Spalding is suspected to have been vandalised.
The penguin – nicknamed Penny – was discovered in tatters on Friday morning, just a week after being put in place in Churchgate.
Now, the three Georgian Court ladies, whose creations including The Queen, Julipa and Joseph’s Cat of Many Colours have amused thousands of people, have lost the will to make more.
Jan Neale said: “It’s so disheartening. To start off we thought a car had caught it, but a car wouldn’t pull its head off. The head’s gone missing completely, so it’s got to be vandals.
Carol Usher said: “It had only been up a week – last Thursday we put this one up.”
“We feel ‘is there any point carrying on?’ The head went off the queen first and then the cat.”
The trio of knitters – including Kitty Dickinson, who creates the heads – are already working on a Halloween-themed creation to replace the queen, which was on a stump near the junction with Love Lane. But the friends say that could be the last one.
