Mini guitar hero

When my friend Charli had a baby, I wanted to make her something suitable for her new little one. As she’s always been a keen singer and likes to play her acoustic guitar I thought I’d make a mini version so that she and her baby could play along together!

I couldn’t find a pattern so I just knitted two wide rectangles for the body and sewed them together in the shape of the body of the guitar. Then I made one long thin piece and folded it over to make the neck of the guitar, leaving a slightly longer bit at the front so I could sew it onto the body to look authentically like the fingerboard.

I appliqued on pieces of felt in the shape of the sound hole and the bit where the strings attach. For the pegs I knitted small squares, rolled them up and sewed them in place when I was making the neck. I made the strings by laying the purple wool in place and stitching it down with thin embroidery thread. I stuffed the whole lot with toy stuffing and included a rattle inside so little Samuel could really make music with his mummy!

Here he is chilling out after what appears to have been a particularly heavy session of rocking out!

Monkeys spreading like rabbits!

Knitted garden monkeys are continuing to crop up around the country and reports are coming in that they appear to be developing super powers. Click here to read all about the latest sighting in Northampton.

Where will the next knitted garden monkey be spotted? Members of the public are warned to remain vigilant at all times.

Jenny was an octopus…

…not a giant squid!

My friend Kieran has a song about an octopus called Jenny, so when it came to making him a Christmas/birthday present I thought it was the perfect opportunity to try my hand at a knitted cephalopod. Oh, and she has an anchor tattoo because in the song she’s in love with a bucaneer named Billy.

I adapted Jenny from this free Ollie the Octopus pattern from Lion Brand (you have to sign up as a member to view Lion Brand patterns, but it’s well worth doing as it’s free and there’re loads of good patterns). The main difference was that I put in less decrease rows at the beginning so Jenny has a slightly fatter head than Ollie because I wanted her to look less like a squid! I also made Jenny’s legs longer by putting more knit row repeats in.

More monkey news

It hasn’t taken long for knitted garden monkeys to start popping up all over the country. Seems they’re resourceful little fellas with sightings coming in from motorway service stations to hot air balloons. This handsome specimen looks like he has found a cosy home all the way east in Cambridge. I was lucky enough to visit his new owner Ruthie on her 30th birthday at the start of October. “Jeffrey’s settled in remarkably quickly,” Ruthie said, “he likes to lend a hand around the house and especially likes helping to hang washing out on the line. He’s ever so well behaved.”

Remember if you’d like to help save the knitted garden monkey, follow these simple instructions.

Save the knitted garden monkey

Few people have ever seen a knitted garden monkey in captivity, let alone in the wild, but here’s one I spotted in its natural habitat in my Mum and Dad’s back garden. He looks happy enough here, but my parents’ 3 cats and a dog make the garden a treacherous place for such an endangered species. In the end this particular monkey decided to come back to Falmouth, where he’s become an activist monkey and found a lovely new home with a balcony garden. No cats can find him there!

 

 

If you’d like to help repopulate your local area with knitted garden monkeys, follow these simple instructions (pdf) . (The pattern is from Knit a Square & Make A Toy which I think is out of print).

Chick Knit

Who knew that a tea cosy could start a revolution?

Well, when I sent my lovely friend Paula a stripey tea cosy for her birthday in April, not only did it provide her with a nice warm brew, it also sparked a new wave of creativity. Paula had been taught to knit at a very young age by an elderly relative and could remember many happy days spent creating all sorts of wonderful knitted objects.

So spurred on by the arrival of the tea cosy, she picked up her sticks again and was amazed how quickly it all came flooding back. A few weeks later it was my birthday and I was thrilled to receive the cutest little knitted chick from Paula!

She made it up completely off the top of her head (making a big oval for the body and little ones for the wings) and isn’t it a fine creation? He now sits merrily on my kitchen shelf keeping a beady eye on me and my housemates.

To find out what other delightful creations P’s working on, visit her at Dizzychick Does Stuff.