Sylvanian Families Woodland Camping Set

Let's Knit Issue 45

I never had any Sylvanian family animals as a child. I was deeply aggrieved by this so, as an adult, I bought my own. I particularly love the babies, although my husband insists that, in real life, they would eat each other rather than play happily together whilst wearing cute little outfits.

Anyway, I was thrilled when I saw Val Pierce's Carry on Camping project in August's issue of Let's Knit magazine. I felt my assorted critters would really like a summer camping holiday.

You could use any double knit yarn for the project and my Sylvanian family were very lucky as they ended up with Bowland Wool Blue Faced Leicester in four delightful natural shades.

First up was the tent.

This was knitted in one large strip for the main part of the tent, done with two strands of different shades together using 5mm needles. I used to be nervous about knitting two strands together, but with one ball in each of my two yarn bowls, it was easy. The back is knitted as a triangle and then the two tent flaps were knitted on smaller needles in just one shade. I'm not confident I sewed the tent flaps on the right way round, but they look okay to me.

The hardest part of the tent was in fact making the frame from cardboard. I found some thick cardboard left over from bedding packaging and cut three triangles with a tab on each, glued them to together and then used some gaffer tape for extra strength. The knitted tent fit over the frame really well and is still standing so must be sufficiently robust.

The ground sheet is also knitted two strands together, with one colour combo for the edges and another for the middle and it lies nice and flat. The sleeping bags are made on 4mm needles in two colours - one for the pillow section and one for the bottom. I made two in different colour ways. You pad the pillow section slightly with toy filler when making up. I decorated my sleeping bags as the project suggested, using Papermania bows on the front of each.

The picnic blanket is made up of three garter stitch strips sewn together. I used slightly fewer colours than the magazine, but I think it looks nice:

You get no fewer than three patterns to use for the little cushions. One in moss stitch, one in garter stitch and one in stocking stitch stripes. These were a little fiddly to sew up but look sweet piled up on the picnic blanket.

The bunnies and their pals seem to approve of their new holiday lodgings, I had fun making all the bits and pieces, so a fab project all round...

Melx