Knitted bunny

In my search for more (and more) information about Waldorf I came across this great book 'Creative Play for your toddler' by Christopher Clouder and Janni Nicol at my local library.

And since we're coming up to Christmas (5 weeks... eek) I thought - great - handmade pressie for my little ones :-) Starting with this very sweet knitted bunny for Little Miss Q (23 weeks).

So during a long 9 hour drive to visit family I got knitting. Casting on 40 stitches and knitting stocking stitch (knit a row, purl a row, repeat) until I had a square (around 16 cm each side). I also left a nice long strand of wool on each end (from casting on and off) to help sew bunny up later.

To create bunny's legs I joined each corner together for about 5 cm. Next I sewed along the cast on edge before gathering it to help make bunny's head. Then I kept sewing to join bunny up (i.e. from head gathering down to bunny's hind legs).

Stuffing bunny came next and I started by making a head shape and then tying it off with wool. Then I filled the rest of the body and played around with his shape (he? - who knew!) - this part was the trickiest for me (any hints for next time welcome!). Once I was happy with his shape I joined him up.

For the ears I cast on 6 stitches and knitted until they were around 6 cm, before knitting 2 stitches together each row until casting off. Then I sewed these on (again I'd kept some wool attached from casting on to sew with). For bunny's tail I wound wool around my finger and tied it up.

 I hope she likes him :-) Thanks for reading, Kelly

This pattern was reproduced by permission of Octopus Publishing Group Limited. Copyright (c) Octopus Publishing Group Ltd 2008. All rights reserved.