Acts of faith...
I think felting projects require a peculiar combination of faith, imagination and courage, as what you are knitting bears pretty much zero resemblance to the finished article until the magic trip around the washing machine.
Happily, my faith was eventually rewarded with these supercute felted bunny slippers that I made from a PDF pattern from Tiny Owl Knits' Etsy Shop.
The pattern suggested using Sirdar Eco Wool DK. Eco Wool is actually discontinued but I picked up four balls from Ebay and for half price too. I was a bit dubious about the shade ("shale") when it arrived in the post but again the magic of felting seems to have made it into a nice grey.
I knitted the slippers on 8mm needles with the yarn held double. Each slipper is made in one piece, with a garter stitch sole and toe and stocking stitch sides. To form the slipper, I simply had to whip stitch the heel and toe into place. The pattern kindly emphasized that all the stitches would be hidden so there was no need to do it neatly (just as well).
The bunny ears are knitted separately in stocking stitch with some simple shaping. So, at the end of my knitting, this is what I had:
I have to bless the designer, Stephanie Dosen, for including a picture of the pre-felted knitting in her pattern so I didn't throw the whole lot in the skip right there and then.
Stephanie recommended hand felting the slippers, but I've felted successfully in my washing machine many times, including with Eco Wool, so I popped the slippers on a 60 degree rapid wash with a little detergent.
Once the slippers were out, I put them on (a trifle soggy but necessary) to shape them to my feet. Once dry, I followed the making up instructions and sewed the bunny ears to the slippers. I used some leftover pink DK to make the noses and black to embroider the eyes. Finally. I used my smallest Clover pom pom maker and some white DK to produce two small pom poms, which I sewed to the heels.
At that point, I erm, decided the slippers were too big (I blame hubby for trying them on). So (and this is the courageous part), I gave them another cycle in the washing machine in their finished form.
After holding my breath for an hour, I got the slippers back out of the washer and put them back on my feet - much snugger this time. I reshaped the ears and also found the face had felted rather nicely. Unfortunately, the pom poms were in a bit of a state, so I lopped them off and made two more, thanking my lucky stars that I had mostly got away with it.
And there you have it - a triumph of hope over what the hell was I thinking...
Melx
Beyond the comfort zone...
After last week's easy-to-knit-but-pig-to sew-up project, I thought I'd try it the other way round. This is Greta the Captivating Cat, a PDF pattern from Rebecca Danger's Etsy shop. I love Rebecca's patterns, but having knitted one before, I also know they involve knitting almost exclusively in the round with picked up stitches and the like. The patterns are supposed to knitted with a combination of double pointed needles and magic loop, but given I still can't use DPNs, I knew I would have to do the whole lot with magic loop. The reward, though, would be minimal sewing up and a pleasingly seamless effect.
For the project, I chose Twilleys Freedom Purity Chunky in grey. The yarn is 85% wool and 15% alpaca and very good value at £3.79 per 50g ball (I ended up using two out of the three balls I purchased). The pattern allows you to use any weight of yarn with needles a couple of sizes smaller than recommended so I worked with 5mm needles and a 100cm cable from my brilliant Knit Pro rosewood interchangeable needles set.
To start with, I knitted each leg individually on the circular needles, which went pretty well. Then the tough part. You have to arrange both legs and four additional stitches onto the circular needles so you can pick the whole lot up to made a seamless join between the legs and the body. This took two attempts and a little botching but I got there in the end. The first few rounds of the body feel a bit tricky as you bring together the legs, but once I got going I couldn't stop and finished the body in record time.
The pattern suggested you should leave the seam at the top of the legs open for stuffing and close the head with three needle bind off, but I opted to close my bottom seam early as the yarn ends were bugging me and the gap wasn't that large for stuffing and inserting the safety eyes and nose. So, I stuffed the body and created the cat's face from the top of the head and then closed it with mattress stitch. The final step for the body was to sew on the little belly button, which is such a cute touch.
By this stage, all the hard work was really done, with just the appendages to go. I made the two ears on the circular needles and sewed them on (probably the messiest bit of the whole thing). I then produced two arms and, as per Rebecca's instructions, stuffed just the paws before attaching them. Unlike for the ears, I mattress stitched the arms closed at the top first, then sewed them on, which seemed neater than sewing them on open.
Finally, I made a circular tail. It's a bit shorter than the pattern as I was getting to the end of my second ball and didn't want to start a third for the sake of a few rounds. I think the tail looks long enough though?
The final flourish was to raid my considerable ribbon stash for kitty's neck bow. I finally settled on a cute paw print ribbon. Greta is also a tall cat, standing about 15 inches high.
I'm not sure this is a very girly cat but I'm mighty impressed with her and a little bit impressed with myself for managing to knit it. More Rebecca to come I think...
Melx
How hard can it be?
Regular readers will know that I do love a knitting kit. None is sweeter than this Make Your Own Knitted Cat and Mouse Kit from Red Rose and Blue. The kit came with 100% wool to make the cat and the mouse, stuffing, knitting needles and a tapestry needle for making up. It all arrived in a cute little bag and cost £15.50.
Now, upon perusing the pattern, I observed that the knitting bit for the cat looked easy; one square for the tail and a rectangle each for the head and tail. However, a glance at the picture of the cat on the front of the kit suggested it was all a bit more 3D and therefore some effort would be required with the making up if I wanted it to bear any resemblance to the designer's vision.
Anyway, I set off in faith with the garter stitch knitting for the pink cat. The kit provides some intriguing knitting needles that are supposed to give the feel of ivory but I stuck with my own 3.25mm Signature Needles, which are ace for knitting small things.
I was just getting towards the end of rectangle for the cat's head when disaster struck. I ran out of yarn! This was a bit of a shock as I'd kept the tails short and not wasted any by starting again etc. Anyway, it was all sorted with a quick email to Tola at Red Rose and Blue and soon more yarn was on its way.
In the interim, I knitted the mouse, which was garter stitch with some simple shaping. I sewed it up using mattress stitch and then made the tail from a crochet chain rather than attempt the finger knitting suggested in the pattern.
Once my new supply of pink yarn arrived, I finished the cat's head and made its tail. The making up was indeed tough - the body and head need to be shaped quite a lot in the both the sewing and the stuffing.The yarn kept snapping whilst I was doing the sewing, which was hugely aggravating but not really uncommon. The wool looks really nice on the finished kit though.
Anyway, there you have it. A lovely Waldorf-style kitty and mousey. I have two other Red Rose and Blue kits; one for a bunny and one for a family of chickens. I'm looking forward to making them once I've had a little lie down...
Melx
Idiot, moi?
When I learned to crochet last March, a major motivation was that I wanted to be able to make cute amigurumi critters. Although you can knit amigurumi too, I think the crochet style is more distinctive. To date, a fair number of attempts at amigurumi crochet have ended up in the bin, although the odd one has been acceptable.
Anyway, I decided I needed to swot up a bit more so I purchased June Gilbank's book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Amigurumi and read it from cover to cover, which I hardly ever do with craft books.
Armed with my new knowledge, I set about this PDF pattern for dust bunnies I'd had for a while from Voodoo Maggie's Etsy Shop.
For my bunny, I used Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran with a size E (3.5mm) hook. This was one size smaller than the pattern suggested but June's book suggested that size E with worsted weight yarn was the best combination for amigurumi.
All the pieces of the bunny are crocheted in continuous spirals. I used a padlock stitch marker to make sure I didn't lose my place in each round. As I've found previously, the main challenge was keeping my tension tight and avoiding holes when increasing and decreasing. My decrease rounds at the top of the head are a bit holey but better than previous attempts.
When making the body, I applied a number of June's tips, including turning the crochet the other way out so the right side of the work is showing and putting a bag of plastic pellets in the foot of a pair of of tight to weight the body.
The ears, arms, eyes and tail of the bunny are crocheted separately and then sewn together.
I think this is my best amigurumi attempt to date, although I'm not out of the woods yet. After this, I had two unsuccessful attempts at making the hamster pattern from June's book so more practise is clearly called for...
Melx
