Knitting 'Betty the bunny'

Phew, I'm actually glad it's Friday, it's been a week and a half! I'm shattered and ready for the weekend not unlike the boys. So I'm going to keep this short (she says) and get back to chilling out for the evening.

First couple of lines knitted

Crafting wise I've only done a little bit of the Lake Baikal cross stitch because I've been busy knitting up 'Betty the bunny', a freebie kit that came with the February edition of Let's Knit magazine which I treat myself to last weekend. It's a very cute little toy that I'm sure little miss A will love and there are a couple of additional patterns in the magazine itself for some clothing for the bunny.

The actual pattern is fairly straightforward to knit and I have only come across a couple of little issues which are niggles more than problems. There were one or two abbreviations in the pattern which were only explained in the long list in the magazine itself (and they weren't ones I'd come across before) which is fine, if a little frustrating if like me you don't necessarily carry the magazine around with you. The pattern for the bunny was printed separately to the magazine and so originally I thought that would be all I needed. The second little niggle is definitely a personal one and mainly comes from being out of practice with knitting and is just that, because the pattern is knit on 3mm needles it has given me some cramping in my left hand (I'm right handed).

'Betty' before her legs were attached this afternoon
and her cute little tail 😍

It's a quick knit with that aside though and I could probably have had it fully finished in a day to a day and a half if I'd had more time / my hands weren't aching as much. As it is, I just need to sew up the dress and add a button, knit one more shoe and sew both up and knit up the hair bow all of which I should get finished tomorrow all being well. Then it will just be a case of adding the facial features. In the instructions it uses toy eyes but, as I've mentioned previously, they are not easy to source in my town and as I'm giving it to an under 3 I've decided to embroider on the eyes. If I have a more serious gripe with the freebie it's that there is no thread included for the mouth and nose which are embroidered on but I guess that's because they assume that the average crafter will have some in their stash. Sadly I don't 😔

Next week should see me starting to knit my jumper which I'm knitting in the round and will be using the pattern that I have converted from being knit in sections on 2 needles. I picked up the wool for this last weekend in a gorgeous deep purple. I'm quite excited to see how it turns out and *think* that I have sussed out how to do the neckline which I was panicking about a few weeks ago.

Right, I said I was keeping this short...

Until next week,

M x