Some pictures.

First of all, the teddy bear I knitted:


His name is Bertie. He was made using the "Sleepy Sam" pattern in Sandra Polley's "The Knitted Teddy Bear." However, there's either an error in the pattern or I misread at some point, because the first time I knit the body, the head was facing backwards. It was an easy enough fix once I ripped back, but still.

The yarn I used is a cotton/wool/silk blend, Katia "Folk." It was left over from a hat I knit several years ago. I had thought once of making mittens with the yarn but I already have brown alpaca mittens, and also, where I live, mittens aren't needed that often. (Hats are more useful - on sort-of cold but windy days they protect the hair).

Knitting this bear made me realize there are a couple of different ways (probably 4) of knitting toys.

The first, and simplest, method is to knit squares or rectangles and then manipulate them into the shape you want (the Waldorf school toys - lions and lambs - fit this model, and also the Heartstrings knitted bunny, as well as the things in "Knit a Square, Make a Toy."

The second method - and my favorite - is what I'd call the "Jess Hutchinson" method, after the toys in her pamphlet - as much as possible, knitting-in-the-round is used to make the toys, and then they are stuffed before you knit them closed. It's satisfying to me to use circular knitting to make a three-dimensional object; I like knitting socks and gloves for the same reason.

The third method is more of an architectural method, and is what Kath Dalmeny used in "World of Knitted Toys" - you knit up flat pieces that bear little resemblance to the finished creature, and then by careful seaming you get the right shape. (I think this is how Debbie Bliss does it in her patterns too). The problem is, if you don't seam perfectly, or if your gauge (row AS WELL AS stitch) is a little off, you get an odd-shaped animal. (Trust me. I have a very lumpy lion cub that resulted). When it works, it's great, but it's fiddly and if you're not exactly to specs, you get something that looks disappointingly unlike the picture.

The final method is the one used in the knitted teddy bear book. Basically, you take the pattern pieces you'd use to sew a toy, and knit flat pieces in the shape. And then you sew them up. There's almost as much sewing on one of these knitted teddy bears as there would have been had I made it out of fabric. The good thing about it though is that you get a pretty recognizably-shaped toy, and there aren't any funny little short seams to shape noses or toes or things like that. So you get a pretty traditional-looking toy using a method that might be nontraditional for it.

Also, the quilts:


This is from a pattern called "Spring Garden Path" - basically a highly modified version of the old Rail Fence pattern. It used seven fat quarters of the pastels and eight of the greens. I'm going to have it quilted by the lady in Sherman who does quilting.

I also picked up a quilt the ladies at my mom's church quilted for me:


Again, it's a fairly simple pattern - sort of like Irish Chain. I find that simple rectilinear designs are most pleasing to me, and are also easiest to get to come out well.

Also, I think it's an effective quilt because, again, there's a blend of fabric scales: the yellow print is small scale, the brown and multicolored ones are medium-scale, and the bluegreen is large scale.

The fabrics in this quilt are mostly Asian inspired. You can't tell from the multicolored print so well, but it looks like opened parasols. And the brown has ginkgo leaves and what I think must be Chinese script. And the large-scale print also has Asian (again, I'm guessing Chinese but could be wrong) script on it.


I just hope that the fabrics don't say things like "Gee, these silly Americans will buy anything" or "Stupid Westerners, stop co-opting our culture" on them.