Knitted Woodland at the Village Show

The past few weeks have been hectic in terms of my knitting. Mam had persuaded me to enter something knitted into the village show. But it was only four weeks before the show, and I had nothing to enter. So cue the panic deadline knitting!

I decided that since I had been given a book called Mini Knitted Woodland (By Sachiyo Ishii), I would knit a woodland. I started off with a huge list of the animals from the book which I planned to knit, and I decided to knit two of each. I got to thirty animals, and hadn't finished the list, but decided to stop because I was only a week away from the show, only had some animals and no other scenery.

I then knitted a forest floor. There was a pattern for it in the back of the book. It was made up of squares of different stitches, made with different shades of green. The squares are then sewn together to create a floor, which I then put my animals on to. I also crocheted two circles, out of two shades of blue to create a couple of ponds to go with the woodland, as I had two swans, two cygnets and four ducks! The ponds were sewn onto the edge of the woodland floor. They overlapped the edge to make sure they were part of the woodland but would allow a fair amount of space behind for the other animals.

I also knitted one full size tree and a tree stump from the book. The tree itself was quick and fairly easy to knit, but back stitching the foliage on was a slow and painstaking task. But it was done and I was really happy with how the tree looked in the end. The tree stump would have been very easy to knit. But I had managed to leave one of my DPNs in Wales... So I had to improvise, which meant having one straight and sliding the stitches off it whenever I needed to knit them. It worked. Kind of.

Overall I was very pleased with the outcome of it all. I was happy when I finished the last tree and was able to lay out the pieces and see it all together. I was really happy entering it into the show, and was so happy when I got second prize. The hard work really did pay off!

Don't let the bed bugs bite!

This was a cute little pattern shown to me by my friend Shanni, from a book called Knitting Mochimochi, and it was such a cute pattern I had to have a go! Its called the Bite-Free Bedbug. And it is a little six legged bug, who is very ready to get some kip.

The first one I knitted was this little light aqua coloured one. The yarn I was using was leftover yarn from my Two-Tone Scarf, and his little hat, some leftovers from the Legwarmers I made quite a while ago too. So the bug itself doesn't use much yarn at all.

The Bug is knit entirely in the round, and the suggested needles are four, 4mm DPNs. You knit the main body first and before you finish, you stuff him, before continuing to the end, adding a little more stuffing and then cast off.

I found him really quite simple to knit, and the book itself explained everything, and was well written. The hat was also knit in the round, and added on afterwards, which I thought was a lovely addition. The eyes are sewn on using a contrasting colour at the end as well, just to give it that little sleepy look too.

Whilst the pattern was easy, it was rather fiddly. Especially when it came to the legs and ears, as they were knit separately, then sewn on, but having something to rest it on helped.

But I enjoyed knitting the first one so much, and still had a lot of leftover yarn I decided to make another in opposite colours. Now interestingly, the second one was ever so slightly smaller than the first one. Now I don't know if that is down to tension, or the differences from when I stuffed them? I'm really not sure, but they do look ever so cute together.

On a slightly soppy note, I did give one of them to Mr M and kept the other for myself. He really liked his, I let him choose which one he wanted, and he kept the lighter colour one.