Here's one of the things I knit over break:

This bear used the pattern from Jess Hutchinson's (now sadly out-of-print) knitted toy book. Her name is Petunia. (I was going to call her Henrietta, because the original bear was named Henry, but when I was knitting her up, I decided her name was Petunia, not Henrietta.)



I used Lion Wool because I had a few skeins on hand that worked color-wise. The one major change I made was to add a little knit-long-ways garter stitch scarf because her neck looked a little bare after she was finished.

I like the pattern; if I were knitting a toy as a gift for a child (a "generic" toy, not a situation where the child said specifically that they wanted a squid or a moose or something like that), I'd probably make this one. The shape and size (the body, without limbs, is kind of peanut-shaped) are pleasing. Even for an adult - the bear is kind of a good size to cradle in the crook of your arm, it's not too big but not tiny either.

If you wanted to make a different sort of animal using the pattern, you could (presuming you wanted a humanised animal that could walk on two legs). You could make a cat by making the ears pointier and adding a perhaps 6 or 8 stitch knit-round tube for a tail. You could make a very nice mouse by making the ears bigger and adding an i-cord tail. You could make a dog by making the ears long and floppy and (maybe) making a little "puff" shape to add on for the muzzle. You could make a lion probably by just adding a mane. And you could make a squirrel by making the ears smaller and adding a big fluffy (loop-stitch?) tail.

And again, knitted toys have that nice "squashiness" that's often absent from sewn toys. (I also think a knitted toy is lighter than a sewn toy of similar size. I don't know if that's because you generally stuff knitted toys more lightly, or if the wool yarns I typically use are just lighter than the cotton fabric I typically use when I make sewn toys).

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More on making, breaking, and hating New Year's resolutions:

"Let me appeal to your petulant elitist side (as opposed to your lurking egalitarian side), and entreat you to make no "promises to self" that involve measuring your food or rearranging your bedroom to accommodate a large, ugly treadmill or other torture device. If rooms must be arranged, let it be to make way for more bookshelves or a roll-top desk with countless cubbies. Nordic Track, indeed. What, bosh. Walk to the bookstore or the library if you need to tone and firm. But invite ugliness into your home? Bleah. Never....

...If you must list and sort and promise, well, will these work?

(1) Resolve to read more, think more, write more, learn more. Update your wishlist at Amazon.com.

(2) Subscribe to a magazine that opens new worlds to you. (No, Entertainment and People don't count.)

(3) Promise yourself more than twenty minutes daily to think, a space-time into which nothing and no one can creep without your express mental invitation. It is in this quiet zone that you will uncover your creativity.

(4) Begin a correspondence with someone who will share your reading discoveries.

(5) Keep a reading log, noting favorite passages."

(From the challenging and inspiring Mental Multivitamin. (The direct link to the full piece is here


(That said: yes, I do have a NordicTrak in my guest bedroom. And I use it nearly every day. I love the idea of walking to a bookstore or library to tone and firm, except (a) my body is of the sort that requires more, shall we say, motivation, not to be a pile of jelly, and (b) walking to the nearest real bookstore would mean traversing roughly 35 miles one way, including crossing a river which has no pedestrian bridge. And walking to the library would involve navigating a street on which several people own pit bulls and they are not always exactly punctilious about keeping them chained up. Unfortunately for those of us who live in the rural world, the dream of being able to walk everywhere and getting our daily exercise that way is just that, a dream.)