Teddy Bear Instructions

I haven’t started a new knitting project yet but I did come across the instructions I’d written in a notebook to make the teddy shown in the header picture. I also found the scribbled instructions, definitely written on the hoof, to make his little jersey, but they are going to take rather more deciphering so I’ll leave that to another day.

Teddy needs a 50g ball of eyelash or some similar fancy, fluffy yarn (you can normally pick them up in the market or £1 shop pretty cheaply), a set of 3.5 needles (but you may need to adjust according to your yarn), a handful of kapok stuffing,  a preformed nose and a set of eyes. Apologies if the quality of the instructions isn’t up to Paton’s standard but it’s such an easy pattern it’s hard to get wrong. It’s knitted in one piece so is easy for beginners, especially children.

Leg 1 (front): Cast on 3 stitches. Rows 1 -3 increase by 1 st at each end. Knit 18 rows. Leave on holder.

Leg 2 (front): Cast on 3 stitches. Rows 1 -3 increase by 1 st at each end. Knit 18 rows then transfer stitches for Leg 1 to needle.

Body: Knit across 18 stitches for 9 rows. To make the front of the arms, increase by 9 stitches at the beginning of the next 2 rows. Increase by 2 stitches at the beginning of the next two rows. Knit 1 row. Decrease by 2 stitches at the beginning of the next 2 rows. Decrease by 9 stitches at the beginning of the next 2 rows. Then knit 38 rows (this forms the head). To make the backs of the arms, increase by 9 stitches at the beginning of the next 2 rows. Increase by 2 stitches at the beginning of the next two rows. Knit 1 row. Decrease by 2 stitches at the beginning of the next 2 rows. Decrease by 9 stitches at the beginning of the next 2 rows. Knit 9 rows.

Leg 1 (back): Knit 9, turn, then knit 17 rows. Decrease 1 stitch at each end of the next 3 rows, then cast off.

Leg 2(back): Knit 18 rows on remaining stitches. Decrease 1 stitch at each end of the next 3 rows, then cast off.

To make up: Fold and sow around edges ensuring you leave enough gap to turn teddy inside out. Turn teddy inside out. His head will look like a square. Make his ears by sewing across the corners, partially stuff his head then insert the eyes and nose. Stuff the rest of his head but before filling the body, sew around his neck and pull up like a drawstring. Secure fairly tightly then continue to fill the rest of his body. Sow up the remaining seam.

Teddy may not be a sophisticated bear with articulated joints but he is quick and easy to make, and can be made in a variety of yarns and colours.

Finis

The long, mohair stole has been completed at last, along with matching beret.

God knows when I’ll actually wear them. Possibly in the house, during a power cut. We tend to get them in winter. For some reason I’ve never managed to fathom, they usually occur on Thursday mornings.

I think that will be my final knitting until the nights start drawing in again. Actually, that’s on Sunday as it’s the longest day on Saturday! Doesn’t time fly …

You can’t turn back the clock.

They say that you should never follow a fashion if you’re old enough to have worn it the first time. This nugget of good advice also applies to knitting patterns. My mohair jumper has now been converted into the shawl collar cardigan below:

 

It doesn’t hang very well on a hanger, and it’s not a pattern by Alaia, but it is more practical and has had several outings to date.

 

I’ve also unravelled another mohair mistake, knitted to an eighties’ pattern (wouldn’t you think I would learn?) that became a noughties’ drawer filler.   This time it was a kingfisher bolero with a frill around the edge. I know it sounds absolutely awful, but the main problem was the way it hung at the back, far too much ‘swing’. I was tempted to stick to another tried and tested v-neck, long sleeved, plain knit sweater, but I’ve decided to indulge myself and create a lacy stole instead. I’ll probably rarely (never??) wear that either, but at least I can knit whilst watching the TV without having to follow a pattern and, let’s face it, lacy stoles aren’t really subject to the whims of fashion.

Don’t look back

Am I the only knitter who spends as much time unpicking as knitting?

When Elle UK was launched in the late 80s, I bought it religiously. One of my favourite features was the designer knitting pattern in the back and I cut out and kept each one. Over years of successive house moves and subsequent clear outs, my collection was whittled down, but one pattern I did keep was a stunning Azzedine Alaia jumper. As 80s styles made a comeback of sorts I decided last year, at long last, it was a good time to knit it. Unfortunately, as is often the case with old patterns, it required an obsolete mohair yarn, doubled. So I used a beautiful mohair / alpaca mix instead that roughly knitted to the same tension. The result was a rather beautiful geometrical garment, soft as a sleeping kitten to touch, but totally impractical. As the wool sheds rather a lot of hairs, I was told I could only wear it in the car if I wore a coat over it – impossible due to the wideness of the sleeves. It was also incredibly warm but rather short so prone to ride up and leave you with a chilly back. So after a few outings, mainly round the house, it became consigned to the further reaches of the wardrobe. Reluctantly I am now unravelling it. I’ve found a pattern for a cardigan jacket style that is more practical (I hope!) ironically in the same broken rib. Still, at least for a time, albeit a short one, I had an Alaia original. And no, I haven’t had the heart to throw the pattern away yet.

Hat’s enough!

That’s it! I’ve finished with hats for the time being. I need a new challenge.

For the record, here they all are, most of which will probably never get worn so I’ll just end up unpicking them to make something else.

So … what next? Mittens or socks? Socks or mittens?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The obsession continues …

New technique! A circular knitting needle and a double-ended needle! One of the problems with using two circular needles was that the pup had chewed one of them so the wool kept getting stuck as I was pushing the stitches down … Never mind, I’m happy with my new method. I was also unhappy with my cast on edge so I am now casting on to a straight needle – much easier to count the stitches – and then transferring the stitches to a circular one after a row of backstitch.

Jon has complained that I’ve spent all weekend counting, and does he really have to wear all these hats I keep knitting. I don’t know what he’s complaining about; I haven’t suggested he wears one of the berets … yet. I am currently trying to perfect a double layered hat as he thinks the single layers are too thin up in the mountains, so I’m only doing it for him, really.    

An all round success

I think I’ve sussed it! I found it easier to transfer a small section of the stitches, say twenty, at a time to the free needle, and work on them. It is rather time consuming but it doesn’t seem to stretch the stitches as much as trying to do half and half. I’ve included a photo to help fellow strugglers.

Knitting hats is becoming an obsession, a bit like Killer Sudoku. The piece I was previously working on, that I started some time last year, keeps catching my eye to be picked up but I pretend I haven’t seen it and pick up another ball of mohair. I bought some Moroccan Sand chenille last year when I was choosing wool for my winter wardrobe. I love chenille and decided to take a chance on a bin-end bargain. That’s the problem with the Internet: you can’t properly see or more importantly feel the texture or what you are ordering. I was expecting some lovely, soft, velvety wool; instead the yarn knits up so hard it could repel bullets. I’m now knitting a summery vest rather than the cardigan I originally had in mind as I couldn’t find any patterns that referenced the yarn and this was the nearest I could find. Still, it may look okay when I’ve finished …

Mobius Strip

Hmm. Spoke too soon. I still needed to use a double-ended needle in conjunction with the two circular needles to finish off the decreasing rounds. So, I picked up some brown mohair and went back to the instructions with illustrations to try to knit a simple column for a beanie hat. However, despite my best efforts, it kept ‘twisting’ and after the third attempt resulting in a Mobius strip -  symbolic and ironical - I gave up in despair. But I will not be beaten. Somewhere out there, there must be a website with the definitive guide to circular knitting and when I find it I will be sure to share.

Going around the bend

It all started with a stray comment from Jon’s mum. She happened to observe that, on their recent trip to London, woollen hats were everywhere. Wouldn’t I fancy having a go? Now, I am not a hat person. I dislike the feeling of my hair getting pushed down, my fringe in my eyes, and my head getting overheated. But I had a look at a few patterns and thought the challenge of using a circular needle may be quite fun as I’ve only used straight needles or double-pointed for cabling.  So I headed off to the local Wool Shop and picked up what I thought was a circular needle. Fortunately the shop owner is psychic and guessed what I was really after but I’m still not sure where I went wrong. I asked if it was easy to use and she pulled a face saying “once you get used to them”. Undaunted, I went home and sat down with needle, wool and a pattern for a beret. After a couple of days of knitting, unravelling and knitting again as stitches would multiply of their own volition and I kept losing my place (so that’s why you need markers!) I got to the point of decreasing. Tricky! Couldn’t for the life of me work out what happened when you had less stitches than the length of the needle. By the time I got down to twenty-four stitches, they were hanging off: one circular needle, two double-pointed needles, two straight pins, all of varying sizes. Somehow, I got to the end to cast off and fortunately the ‘shrinking process’ obscured the dodgy stitches, but I couldn’t see how on earth you were supposed to knit the whole hat on one circular needle as stated in the pattern. I googled ‘knitting with circular needles’ and found a wonderful website that showed me exactly where I was going wrong: you need two needles! After casting on, you transfer half the stitches to the other needle, then push the stitches round the needles and knit half a round from the other needle ends until you have knitted a circle and all stitches are on one needle again. Then you transfer half the stitches and continue to follow the same process. Now why couldn’t all those patterns state that you need two needles to stop us novices going mental? Is the technique meant to be a big secret, like belonging to the Magic Circle, and knitters are not meant to divulge to non-knitters? Anyway, I’m more than happy to share my discovery. The website in question is called www.knitknitting.com and it contains lots of good advice. I’m now on my second beret, using two needles and whilst it seems long-winded to be transferring stitches between needles every semi-round you do you get used to it very quickly.  

Why is knitting only for girls?

I’ve been knitting on and off since I received my first knitting set as a child over thirty years ago. I suppose it’s considered a bit sexist to give them to little girls these days (and those awful Bratz dolls aren’t?) but my other half used to do cross-stitch kits when he was small so why shouldn’t you let little boys loose with knitting needles … aah, maybe I’ve just answered my own question there … But the point is, it’s a creative pastime that stimulates the imagination and also teaches you how to follow instructions, invaluable in later life when you’re assembling Ikea furniture. Perhaps that’s why men ignore instruction manuals; if only they’d learnt to knit from a pattern when they were kids.

Maybe it’s too closely associated with granny in her rocking chair or the WI for your average young hoodie to take it up but, funnily enough, the only man I’ve ever known admit to knitting (he used to knit soft toys for charity) was ex-army and over six foot. The other half sneers when I proffer a ball of wool and needles and offer to teach him how to knit, but he keeps threatening to give up smoking so this could just be the diversion he needs