Fantastic Beasts and Why We Knit Them

Have you ever had the urge to make a soft toy for that special someone?  They are adorable and you think, “Oh my God!  They are so cute, and well, it shouldn’t take very long.”  It may not, depending on what you choose to make. 

For my first time project, I purchased a kit from a vendor at the Creativ Festival some 13 years ago, to make for our first grandchild.   This included all the bits of yarn and embellishments needed to create a bunny rabbit with a carrot.  Since I had previously made dolls, and had knitted the clothing for them, I thought, “OMG. It is so cute and it shouldn’t take very long!”  Perhaps that would have been true had I selected a simpler project. 

Every individual aspect of the bunny was a knitted piece that needed to be sewn together.  The yarn, with the exception of the carrot, was a snowflake type yarn; not the easiest to knit with in the first place.  It is good for concealing little flaws that happen along the way, and does make for a very soft finished product, which is great for baby. Prior to giving it away to our new grandson, we would carry it around the house and place it on a chair in whatever room we were sitting.  For all the fussy and time consuming work that went into it, I had to admit, it was extremely cute, but was not likely to make another any time soon.  It was a labour of love.  I did buy another kit a couple of years later to make a Teddy Bear for our second grandchild.  To this day, the kit is intact in a storage bin, somewhere. 

This past Christmas, I decided that I would make it easier on myself by purchasing a Sock Monkey from my friend Liz, and knitting a sweater to match the Entrechat (by Lisa Chemery) I had made for my great niece.  Liz does an amazing job of making these monkeys, all with Canadian sourced materials.  It took no time at all to make a sweater and hat for the monkey, and Christine decided that it should have a pom pom.  So she made one. OMG, they were both so cute, and really, it took no time at all by comparison to the bunny.

 

Recently, a member of our local casual knitting group (aka the Flock), was going to be celebrating a significant birthday.  Liz came up with the wonderful idea of making a Donkey for Judith, as this is the name she affectionately calls her husband. What a great idea!  We are all on board.  Brigit found a pattern on Ravelry of a Donkey and Unicorn by Steffi Hochfellner.  OMG, they are so cute!  As a group, we can make the pair for Judith and Donkey. It shouldn’t take very long.

And off we go.  Brigit buys the pattern and we get together with our left over bits of yarn to select our colours.  The pattern calls for a DK weight, but we went with Worsted as that was the best source for our colour bits.

Well, as group projects go, the group ended up consisting of Linda and me.  She took on the Donkey, and I the Unicorn.  By comparison to the bunny, this was a much simpler project, however, still fussy, with lots of ends to sew in due to all the colour changes.  We both found that we could only work on it for so long before pouring a glass of wine and switching to a “real” knitting project.  We got together once a week to work on the critters, and I have to admit, we would gripe a little about how fussy it was; where was the group when we needed them, and so on. 

It wasn’t long before our griping turned into “OMG, they are so cute!” Pretty soon, the heads were stuffed, the ears attached, and then the eyes.  OMG!  These bodiless heads had developed a personality!  Now, we couldn’t wait to get to the next stage.  So we stuffed and stitched, made braided tails, and gave them hairdos. 

Liz helped out with the embellishments, like adorning the horn with some bling.  Every unicorn should have some bling!  After all, it is a magical creature.  I must admit, ours do not look quite like the original, but they are so-o-o-o cute, goofy, but cute!

So, you may be wondering, why I bother making these fantastic beasts when it seems that I complain about making them. 

Scroll down and see.

Need I say more?

Maybe I should dig out that Teddy Bear Kit after all.  It shouldn’t take very long.