Knit one, Purl one

After months of endlessly crocheting granny squares for blankets, I’ve recently rediscovered the joys of knitting. I think I’ll always love knitting more than crochet – I’ve been doing it for much longer, and so much of crochet still seems a bit of a mystery to me. I never have the patience to knit myself things to wear, but I do particularly enjoy making little things that take just a few days to make.

I used to love making little knitted toys as a child but hadn’t make any for years, but one weekend the boys came across some of my old knitting patterns and the requests started rolling in….

First up came Scamp, as requested by Tom. He’s a little Westie dog, knitted in garter stitch.

After I’d finished Tom’s dog, Gabriel was next in the queue. Gabriel has recently had the excitement of his first wobbly tooth falling out and was very pleased when I showed him a pattern for a ‘Tooth Pixie’. This little  chap keeps your tooth safe in a tiny bag on his belt until the Tooth Fairy can come to collect it. The pattern was an old one, by Jean Greenhowe. Like all her patterns, there are a lot of fiddly little pieces to make, but the instructions are always very clear and the results acheivable with a bit of patience! My pixie turned out fairly well, although I think I under-stuffed him a bit, so his hat and belt needed a bit of tweaking to fit – and he looked a lot slimmer than the one in the picture. Gabriel was completely thrilled and can’t wait for his next tooth to come out so he can test the pixie out.

After the Tooth Pixie, I had a break for a bit with some more crochet – which was very soothing after all the painstaking knitting. After a few days of this though, I was very excited when my new King Cole teddy bear pattern arrived, complete with soft, feathered wool. I’d spotted the pattern online and thought it looked super cute and it sounded relatively simple. The wool arrived vacuum packed from the supplier – how amazingly clever?  Once the packaging was cut open it re-inflated magically. Simple things…

Once I’d got over the excitement of re-inflating the wool, it took just a few hours to knit this adorably soft teddy.

The feathery wool (King Cole Cuddles Chunky) took a bit of getting used to, but it works perfectly for the teddy and is the softest wool I’ve ever used. The teddy has jointed arms and legs, so you can move him into lots of different sweet positions, which the boys love (actually, it’s mainly just me – you’re never too old for a teddy).

I decided that pink teddy really needed a friend, so got started on another one. My local wool shop had some of the multi-coloured wool, so I had a go with that…

The boys are now gently squabbling over who gets which teddy, but I might over-rule them and keep them both. I have yet more of the fluffy yarn winging its way to me, so our little menagerie is sure to keep growing!