Sue's Knitting Projects

Pondering knitting some soft toys for young friends, one of them commented that her older brother, who is about to turn 18, is a great fan of penguins. They thought he would appreciate a knitted toy penguin for his birthday. I was a bit dubious, but then we spotted the mini penguins in Sachiyo Ishii's book 'Tiny Toys to Make'. It didn't look too difficult, so I thought I'd try one and see how it looked.  The book recommends 2.75mm needles and double knitting yarn, but I prefer 3mm ones; I knit rather tightly anyway. The book shows one penguin in grey and white, one in blue and white. I was pretty sure penguins were black and white, so I set to work with black yarn, left over from another project. The pattern only takes very small amounts of each, and was so quick to knit that I finished it in about forty-five minutes. The head and body are made in one piece, and the feet, wings and beak are separate tiny parts. Sewing together and stuffing took another twenty m...

I offered to knit some soft toys for some young friends, who had showed a lot of interest in the toys I was making for my grandchildren. They liked the idea, and spent some time browsing my booklets. Slightly to my surprise, one friend - soon to be seven years old - opted for the pink pig in Jean Greenhowe's 'knitted animals' book. It's not a toy I've knitted before, but it looked straightforward, and I had some pink yarn already, which she agreed was a suitable colour. She asked for the pig's neck tie to be dark pink rather than blue. The pattern said that the set of small animals on the page - a koala, a rabbit and a bear, in addition to the piglet - only needed oddments of double knitting yarn. That's probably true for the ones knitted in more than one colour, but the piglet is pink throughout, and in fact took about 25g of yarn, which is more than I would consider an 'oddment'. I used 3mm needles and followed the instructions exactly. Ther...

I completed my most recent knitting project just a few days before my almost-three-year-old grandson (and his family) come to stay. He's a great fan of Postman Pat, so a few months ago I ordered 'The Postman Pat Knitting Book' by Joy Gammon. My aim was to knit a sweater, and that's nearly completed, but I also rather fell in love with the black-and-white cat Jess, and have been knitting that as well. Here's the final product, which, I realise, is similar to the original Jess in the 1980s/1990s series, but doesn't really look all that much like Jess in the 'new' Postman Pat books and TV show: But I hope he'll like it anyway. It's been quite a project. The book suggested using brushed yarn, but I couldn't find any easily, so I decided to use ordinary double knitting wool.  It wasn't until I was over half way through that I realised that the main body, head, legs and tail sections are all 'inside out', as it were. th...

Having knitted a soft pink and grey ball for my infant granddaughter, I thought I'd do a smaller one for my almost-three-year-old grandson, so he also has something that may be thrown or rolled in the house. In the same trio of knitted balls in my Paton's 'more bazaar items' booklet, one was supposed to be knitted in chunky yarn on larger needles. I decided to use double knitting and my favourite 3.25mm needles (10 in old style UK measurement) so that the result would be smaller.  I'm not usually sexist about colours, but since I like turquoise and I had some available, I opted for turquoise and grey. The pattern involved five identical panels, and they were rather easier to knit than those of the diamond motif ball.  Each one took me around 20-25 minutes and by the fourth one, I knew what I was doing and barely glanced at the pattern. Sewing together was straightforward, and the result not too bad: The grey amounts look bigger than the turquoise; this ma...

One of the knitting pattern booklets I've had for a long time is the Patons 'More Bazaar Items'. Many years ago I knitted a couple of the soft toys from it, as well as a tea-cosy cover for one of my grandmothers. It's not one I'd looked at for a while, but I was intrigued by the three different soft balls. I thought they'd be ideal for rolling around a hard floor, so I decided to knit one for my infant granddaughter who will be here in a few weeks. I studied all three of the ball patterns, and opted for the one called 'diamond motif'. I quickly realised that the diamond shapes shown in the pattern are embroidered on after the knitting. I prefer to keep sewing to a minimum, so I thought I'd try making the ball by itself.  The pattern said that it needed 50g each of two contrasting colours, double knitting. So as I had an unstarted bright pink and an unstarted grey, I chose them. Neither was Patons brand, but I don't suppose that matters. T...

Just over a year ago, when I decided to start knitting again, I browsed Amazon for some ideas. I put a couple of things on my wishlist, one by an author whose work I already knew, and one by someone I had never heard of. 'Tiny Toys to Knit' showed lots of very cute looking little animals, and I thought it could be fun to knit some really small toys or ornaments. I started the 'Little Beagle', near the back of the book, some time last year.  The author is quite flexible about yarn thickness and needle sizes, She recommends double knitting (or even tapestry yarn for some parts, as it's easy to have oddments of those) and 2.75mm needles, but suggests her readers experiment. I decided to use 3mm needles instead. I knit fairly tightly, and 2.75 (12 in the old UK gauge) seemed a bit too small. It didn't take much yarn at all. I opted for the black, brown and white one as I liked the look of it, and found it very quick and easy to knit. The head, a little confusin...

This is another project which I started some years ago. I don't know exactly when, but probably about ten years ago.  It's called, simply, 'kitten' in the Jean Greenhowe 'Knitted Animals' booklet from which I knitted many toys for my sons, back in the 1990s. I knitted this not with the recommended double knitting yarn, but with some rather thicker wool I had bought for something else. At the time, living in a new neighbourhood, I had no idea where I could buy yarn other than random small balls from the thrift store. But I had some thicker wool in cream, and used that. I don't remember what size of needles I used. For some reason I had mostly finished the kitten body, and had stuffed and sewn it together, even including the facial features which I tend to leave until the end. But I had not sewn the tail in place, nor had I knitted the cushion.  Perhaps this is because I don't like pink, but couldn't decide on an appropriate colour for the cushion...