Little Beagle (Sachiyo Ishii)
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 confusingly, is rather larger than the body and there are four paws, two slightly bigger than the others.
The tail is supposed to be black and white like the paws but I opted for plain black. The tail and ears are not stuffed, but the rest is; it was a bit fiddly but I used the point of a pencil to get small amounts of stuffing inside.
The result didn't look quite like the picture in the book. While I was sewing, I didn't think it was going to work at all, but to my surprised it stood up once I'd added the tail. Then using Jean Greenhowe style knots for the eyes, and a little embroidery on the snout, I didn't think it was too bad at all once it was finished.
The scale isn't obvious from the photo, but it's very small indeed. About 7cm in height. It's really an ornament rather than a toy.
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 confusingly, is rather larger than the body and there are four paws, two slightly bigger than the others.
The tail is supposed to be black and white like the paws but I opted for plain black. The tail and ears are not stuffed, but the rest is; it was a bit fiddly but I used the point of a pencil to get small amounts of stuffing inside.
The result didn't look quite like the picture in the book. While I was sewing, I didn't think it was going to work at all, but to my surprised it stood up once I'd added the tail. Then using Jean Greenhowe style knots for the eyes, and a little embroidery on the snout, I didn't think it was too bad at all once it was finished.
The scale isn't obvious from the photo, but it's very small indeed. About 7cm in height. It's really an ornament rather than a toy.
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