A busy bee

I suppose I should be posting Easter stuff with the holiday upon us but I think I covered that one in my previous post which was a super fast Fluffy Bunny. What I do have to show you is a Bee that I have made for the trust involved in the running of the school that I teach at.  The Head Teacher - who just so happens to be a crafter person - brought me the bookmark for the trust and asked me if I could do anything textiley with it 'leave it with me' I said.

As well as being a secondary school we now accommodate primary school children so I immediately thought of a toy and looking into amigurumi.  I searched on Ravelry and came up with this little guy....

                                                                       


I thought I could 'develop' him to become our little bee, he had a nice big head so there would be plenty of 'learning' going on.  So I purchased the pattern and if you would like to do so this is the link. It's a good pattern very clear and easy to follow.

I started working on this during my half term holiday in Scotland, I had taken a yarn stash from home but on visiting my hometown in Fife I came upon this yarn stash from the wonderful shop Tiger , I came across this shop when we holidayed in Denmark and was thrilled when they came in the UK and I found one in Dunfermline. ( Although nothing in Yorkshire yet) Tiger is inexpensive and just joyful, as a teacher and crafter I can always find something here and on this occasion I got this yarn pack - above - for £2.  Just the colours I needed, 15gms of each so I set to work on it.  Notebook and pen are also from Tiger notebook has graph paper inside: excellent!  

So the result was this little guy and they were thrilled when they saw him at school, I found the face quite hard to do as it can really make or break the toy and I did a lot of unpicking but I think I got the happy chap that he is meant to be with a twinkle in his eye.

I hope you have a lovely Easter, I am off to Bath with a group of ladies for a few days and hoping to see some textiley stuff down there and I also really want to get round to working on my Liberty Quilt: but that's another story.  Happy Easter. 

Easter Bunny

One of my most popular posts is my Crochet Birds for Easter which I produced last year and I thought it was time for something new.  I spied these on Pinterest and decided to have a 'go' at making these Easter Bunnies and I am glad to say that they are super easy and super quick: which they need to be as it's not long to Easter.

They only take a small amount of yarn so are great for using left overs, so let's get started...

I chose to use Rowan's Fine Lace and their Kid Silk Haze as I wanted an element of 'fluff' to the Bunny, I used 2 strands of Fine lace and 1 strand of Kid Silk Haze.  I knitted on 5.5mm needles, I casted on 28sts and worked in garter stitch - knit every row - for 40 rows to produce a rough square shape: and that's it.

I then plotted out a triangle of stitching on the top half of the square, I used a co-ordinating colour but have shown you the layout with the red yarn.

This was then pulled and gathered together - you are creating the bunnies ears and head.

Before you completely sew it together put some stuffing into the pocket created.

Sew up completely.

And pull tight: that's the head made.

 Now, go to the other end of your work and sew up the seam,

like this.

Now put the stuffing in from this end.

Then restitch the seam with large stitches,

and stitch the base together 

 and pull the thread tight to create a round body.

Then attach the pom pom tail,

And you now have your bunny body!

Stitch a couple of eyes with some fine yarn 

And you have your completed bunny, as a variation I have also made this bunny.............

this little chap is created by knitting half in white and half in black and going through the same making up process
- Happy Easter!