Knitting Book Review: Make your own knitted animals

Make your own Knitted Animals, by Bethany Hines

This is a book intended for children, I was given it to review as a knitter and ex-teacher and I'm going to pass it on to a genuine child next! I'm hoping her mum will pass on her own opinion, but these are my thoughts, unscripted and "mine own".

The front cover promises "Learn to knit cute little animal characters" and sure enough there are patterns for 5 little critters: lamb, monkey, panda, bird with chicks and a rabbit. 

There are short tutorials with photos to show how to knit, but this is not, in my opinion, a book to learn how to knit. If your child can already knit (or if you are keen to help) then it's fine. (The back cover does say "prior knitting experience helpful and adult supervision recommended) I would especially question the method they suggest for casting on - but it does work, though very loosely.

I like the presentation! The plastic box at the top where the materials are stored is resealable so you can continue to keep your bits and pieces safely. There are 4 pieces of felt, two sizes of sewing needle, some sewing thread and two 4mm knitting needles (they're not marked, but I checked the size on my gauge)

No knitting yarn, but it is only £5.99 though, and yarn would put the price up.

The patterns are in the form of templates which may or not be a good thing, it depends how your mind works! What disappointed me a great deal is that there are no obvious clues to orientation. In the template below, looking at the finished panda tells me the body and arms templates need to be read sideways, but the ears and feet and tail are read upwards. I think that would be very confusing for a child (it was slightly confusing for me to be honest!) The templates are VERY small. The body template below is a mere 2.5 inches (less than 6.5 cm) wide and I found those tiny squares very difficult to count.

The ear liner template is clearly a circle above...yet when we get to the instructions - not so. Of course by then I'd already cut out my pink circles, so tough. I can hear my imaginary child wailing "I've gone wrong!"

The diagram seems much longer than my knitting...but it was ok when I sewed it up. 

Skipping straight to the last page, the author encourages us to now design our very own characters or animals, and shows four examples. Strangely, they're all crochet with the exception of the tall chap's hat.

The designs themselves are cute though...and here's my panda: I tried hard to stick to the pattern to give it a fair go but couldn't bring myself not to cast on properly! If you'd like to win her, just leave me a comment below with a way to contact you. I'll randomly pick a winner on Friday. ***NB GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED***

Book Review: Knitted Toy Travels

As with my earlier book reviews,  I was given the books in return for writing reviews. It's not edited though, these are my real opinions.

Knitted Toy Travels by Laura Long is a real treat, not just for the knitting patterns but for the fun way the book is written. Each animal is discovered by Ed the Explorer as he travels around the world - there's even a pull-out world map! I plan to have a great deal of fun with this book and my grandchildren...when they arrive! Ed even has two outfits, one for cold weather and one for warmer climes.

Like me, Laura isn't a fan of sewing together small pieces so her patterns are shaped as you knit, or sometimes by a few extra stitches at the end to add definition.

Each new journey introduces a new animal with a short story, a rhyme and a little geographical information. This is definitely a book to read with a child, not just to knit from. Amongst other animals we meet Polly Parrot in Mexico, Kangaroos in Australia, a tiger in India and of course meerkats in Africa. It's quite strange for me to see meerkats knitted by someone else!

The patterns are rated for difficulty, well photographed and there are clear instructions and diagrams for the stitches and techniques you'll need. If I ever published a knitting book, this would be the style I'd love to write. Of course, that would imply I'd got around to actually writing down my patterns....

Knitted Toy Travels by Laura Long

Yarnbombed miniatures

Like many emptynesters we have lots of boxes of "stuff" in the garage that belong to our adult offspring, and were recently going through them with permission to dispose of the contents. I can't bear to throw anything away, so I was really pleased when I came up with a way to upcycle a collection of damaged wooden 

animals!

 

They were a sad little bunch. The crane had a snapped beak, the giraffe had something strange happening with his head, the elephant was chipped and the zebra (is it a zebra?) was a funny shape. I gave them a good scrub and sanded where necessary, then raided the yarn stash.

Time to work my magic!

I started with the crane because he was one of the bigger creatures and I thought his shape looked simplest. 

I'll pause now while you shake your head and mutter "Nifty, nifty" at my foolishness :-)

My first discovery was that wood doesn't bend! Usually when I'm creating I can twist and bend whatever I'm sewing up to "get at" the odd corners....not when I'm yarnbombing wood! 

Once his legs were suitably adorned I knitted the grass and added his toes.

The body shape was NOT simple. Oh no it wasn't! However, his chest took shape eventually, and the wings  (in comparison) were plain sailing - or should that be plain flying? I used a trick I was taught by a friend on twitter (thank you @Thefeminet ) I knitted both wings at the same time on the same pair of needles with two balls of yarn. That way I avoided my usual problem with the second one (what did I do last time??)

Here's the family! I've left the soles of their feet bare so that they can stand up really well - for the zebra, I've even left his little hooves bare. Aren't they cute? They'll be coming to one of my online shops just as soon as I can bear to part with them! Who is your favourite? Don't tell the others, but mine is the giraffe, I love his long flowing ears!