Knitted Lavender Heart & Pussycat

Stripey New Year

I hope everyone has been enjoying the festivities over the last few days. An important part of Christmas for me is getting some time to make things. This might include the challenges inherent in attempting to do this whilst mildly inebriated but I find a bit of sherry tends to improve my performance if anything.

Over Christmas, I've been working on a couple of makes from January's Knit Today magazine. First up was this lavender heart from Lynn Rowe's Sweet Hearts project.

The lavender bag used Rowan All Seasons Cotton. Now, on the plus side, I had some in stash. On the other hand, we haven't been getting on and the leftover balls had been earmarked for the charity shop. I originally bought the yarn to try some amigurumi crochet, which was a disaster (maybe not entirely the fault of the yarn though). Later, I used it to make a knitted elephant, which was abandoned three quarters through - on that occasion I'm fairly sure the yarn was at fault.

Anyway, I pressed on with the All Seasons Cotton and 3.75mm needles. The back of the heart is knitted plain and then the front in stripes. I stuck to two colours as I haven't done stripes for a while and didn't want to get my wool too tangled.



To make up, I back stitched the two hearts right sides together (I find mattress stitch on shaped pieces a bit of a nightmare) and then turned. I stuffed the heart with a combination of toy filling and lavender that was secured in a bag made from one foot of a pop sock. I used mattress stitch (poorly) to close the gap.

Finally, as per the project, I fastened some ribbon to the front and back of the heart with a pretty button. I used nice non-fraying felt ribbon and a couple of pretty heart shaped buttons I had in stash. I made a couple of stitches to secure the ribbon at the top.

This to my mind is a perfect magazine project - quick, simple and made entirely from stash.


Next up was this slightly less simple cat from Ann Franklin's The Owl and The Pussycat project in the same issue. You might at this stage be wondering what happened to the owl and indeed the pea green boat. Unfortunately, the owl was odd-looking and the boat looked time-consuming so I pared down the story a bit.

In the magazine, the cat is done in yellow and black stripes, which my husband said made it look more like a bee. He agreed that my effort in green and cream Bowland Wool Blue Faced Leicester looked much more realistic.

The project is a traditional toy knit, with all the pieces knitted flat on 3.25mm needles and then sewn together. Based on long experience, I did all my sewing up as I went along so I didn't get bored and just abandon it at the end. I also find it more encouraging as toy knits tend to look odd until they are made up (and sometimes afterwards too).

Once again, I back stitched the body and tail pieces, filled them with toy filling and then turned to mattress stitch the gap closed. I added a bag of plastic pellets to the cat's body for ballast, although they keep moving around inside.

I don't think I did a brilliant job of the face - the eyes are too low down, but I think the yarn looks really good in the striped pattern. To finish, I tied a grey silk bow around the cat's tail (which also hides the slightly dubious stitching of the tail onto the body).

So, stripey fun all round. I'm back on the amigurumi crochet now (minus the Rowan All Seasons cotton), so let's see how that turns out...

Happy New Year!

Melx