FO Friday: Flora the Bunny

Hello! I have a slightly belated FO Friday for you today - I meant to post this last Friday in time for Easter, but time got the better of me again... A few weeks ago, my daughter made a special project request - this adorable bunny kit that came with issue 85 of Knit Now magazine.

The knitting was pretty straightforward. The only bit that was annoying was the three row stripes on the skirt, which technically meant you couldn’t carry the yarn up the side (I got round this by knitting the skirt on circular needles and sliding the work along the needle at the end of the three row sections so the working yarn in the right colour was in the right place). I quite quickly ended up with a small pile of easily identifiable body parts!

Sewing up was trickier. The instructions has you sew and stuff the body then the legs, which meant stuffing the legs through a tiny hole (I got my three year old to help, her fingers are much smaller than mine!). Less than ideal. At that point I gave up following the instructions and just made it up as I went along. I embroidered the flower and put the skirt on before I put the head on, which made life a bit easier. The bunny had a finishing touch of a big fluffy pompom for a tail, which was so much fun to add (my pompom was a bit bigger than mentioned in the pattern as that was the size of pompom maker I happened to have - kindly loaned by a friend).

Overall I was really happy with this project. The knitting was easy and the final bunny does look like the picture. My daughter loves the bunny, who has now been named Ginger, and has clutched Ginger sufficiently tightly that Ginger’s neck is a tad on the scrawny side, but that happens to a lot of our small toys, handmade or shopbought!

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Flora the Bunny Ravelry project page
Pattern: Flora the Bunny by Amanda Berry

Yarn Along: Edinburgh anticipation

In the past couple of weeks since I wrote my last Yarn Along post, we have had a lot of snow. We don't normally get all that much snow; some winters we get none, but this winter has been an excpetion. The first snow fell in November, and we've had at least a couple of days of snow every month since then. But the snow we had in late February was the heaviest. I lost count of how many days of snow we had, but there was almost a foot at its peak. Our local schools were shut for 3 days, and I had a lovely (if rather tiring) time, entertaining the kids, both in the snow and indoors. I got almost no knitting done, but it was lovely to spend a few extra days with them.

This time next week I will be in Edinburgh for the day for Edinburgh Yarn Festival. If you're also going, say hello to me if you see me. I really need to look through the vendor list and decide what I most want to look at (I already know I will be making a beeline for the Toft stall as I really want one of their highland cow kits; it is too cute). The festival has been extended to three days this year (from two in previous years), so I'm hoping it's a little less busy that it was last year. I'm also looking forward to a few hours uninterupted knitting time on the train, an added bonus!

I am currently working on two downtime projects: Flora the Bunny and a rainbow crochet blanket. I should have finished the bunny last weekend, as I've done all the knitting, and only have the seaming and finishing to go, but I totally forgot to order the safety eyes, and had to ask a local friend if I could borrow a small pom pom maker (yes, I could have made a pom pom without a maker, but it's a lot quicker with a pom pom maker!). I now have both safety eyes and a pom pom maker, so this will be an FO by the end of the weekend, much to my daughter's delight. The crochet blanket is progressing really well; I'm enjoying the somewhat mindless nature of it, and the colours are so cheery. I am a little over half way, but know that I am going to run out of cream yarn before I get to the end of the border (and will have to wait until I have some other things to order, or make it to a local yarn shop, rather than ordering a single ball). It's also a terrible project to take out and about as it requires 8 balls of yarn and a very large bag! I might have to cast on something else and reserve this for sofa crochet.

World Book Day happened during the snow, so the school events were rescheduled to this week, and I sent two happy children off as George from George's Marvellous Medicine and Princess Pearl from  Zog and the Flying Doctors (that happened to coincide with International Women's Day and it made me pretty proud that my daughter chose to go as a princess who is also a doctor, rather than a generic frilly princess; if you have young girls, go out and find a copy!). I am reading Pax by Sara Pennypacker at the minute. It's a children's book about a boy who saved a fox's life when the fox was a baby, and has to give up the fox when his circumstances change. The chapters alternate being written from the perspective of the fox and the boy, and the writing style is perfect. It's turning out to be an interesting and thought-provoking read.

Marvellous medicine! Or chocolate...

What are you reading and crafting on at the minute?

Linking up with Ginny for Yarn Along.

Yarn Along: Hurry up Spring!

The past two weeks have been all about enjoying half term with the kids, and watching way too much of the Winter Olympics! Half term was the week before last and was lovely. We deliberately made it very relaxed, staying local and enjoying walks in the sunshine and family time. Handily the holidays coincided with the Winter Olympics; I never really watch sports, but love both the Olympics and Winter Olympics. The Winter session is my favourite, especially the sliding and snowboarding events. I've really enjoyed watching everything over the past couple of weeks and might be at a bit of a loss for things to watch in the next few days!

The weather this month has been a total mixed bag. We've had glorious sunshine, fog, freezing conditions, sleet, snow and ice. And there's more of the cold stuff to come. I cannot wait for spring to properly take hold. I did make the most of a cold but sunny day this week by photographing a big pile of samples ready for their patterns to be released over the next few months (the pattern shown is my Peter Rabbit cushion, which will be available in my Ravelry store soon. If you want to get notified when it’s released, sign up to my newsletter via the link in the sidebar).

Work has gone from being relatively quiet to very busy suddenly, with a big new batch of exciting commissions, so my current non-work projects are simple ones. The latest issue of Knit Now magazine came with a kit for a cute bunny, which my daughter immediately claimed for herself. I knitted most of it last weekend and hope to finish it tonight.

Yesterday saw a large yarn delivery, so my other current project is a baby blanket for a friend's baby that is due in the summer. I've gone for a crochet pattern I've done before and a seven-colour rainbow, which is proving to be a lovely cheerful project.

I've still not really settled on a good book at the minute. I'm reading The Note, but it's dragging and I want to be done with it soon. It could really have done with a heavy edit to cut out one of the extra story threads... I picked up the latest issue of The Simple Things magazine, which I've been reading when I've been out and about waiting for other things. Sometimes it turns out I only really want to focus on magazine article length reads.

Linking up with Ginny for Yarn Along.