Knitted pink pig (Jean Greenhowe)
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. There was about three hours' worth of knitting, or a bit less, which I did over a few days, and then the sewing/stuffing part which I don't like so much, but which probably only took about half an hour in all.
The result looked fairly close to the image in the booklet:
The only slightly tricky part was the tail, and it's not pictured in the booklet at all so I wasn't entirely sure how it was meant to look. It's made from a twisted cord, made with four pieces of yarn, doubled and twisted in classic Jean Greenhowe style (the neck tie is made from two pieces twisted in similar fashion).
Each yarn end of the tail had to be sewn into the body; I threaded some of them down the legs, and knotted ends together before pushing into the tiny gap at the soles of the foot, to ensure that the tail could not be pulled out. But it was difficult to get it to curl. The booklet suggests 'catching' it to the body, but I couldn't work out how to make that work, so in the end I tied it loosely into a knot:
Quite a nice little knitting project; I may try the others in the same section some other time.
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. There was about three hours' worth of knitting, or a bit less, which I did over a few days, and then the sewing/stuffing part which I don't like so much, but which probably only took about half an hour in all.
The result looked fairly close to the image in the booklet:
The only slightly tricky part was the tail, and it's not pictured in the booklet at all so I wasn't entirely sure how it was meant to look. It's made from a twisted cord, made with four pieces of yarn, doubled and twisted in classic Jean Greenhowe style (the neck tie is made from two pieces twisted in similar fashion).
Each yarn end of the tail had to be sewn into the body; I threaded some of them down the legs, and knotted ends together before pushing into the tiny gap at the soles of the foot, to ensure that the tail could not be pulled out. But it was difficult to get it to curl. The booklet suggests 'catching' it to the body, but I couldn't work out how to make that work, so in the end I tied it loosely into a knot:
Quite a nice little knitting project; I may try the others in the same section some other time.
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