One of my favourite toy knitting designers is Julie Williams, the designer behind cotton little rabbits.
Julie started with a knitting pattern for a rabbit, but since has added a whole host of animal patterns including sheep, cows and dogs. Each animal comes with an outfit and all outfits are interchangeable between animals with additional clothing patterns also available.
Recently I started to knit the elephant and finished the head before changing my mind on yarn size. I love crocheting with Scheepjes cotton and recently bought some of their finer yarns.
Sugar Rush is a cotton yarn with a recommended hook size of 1.25mm – 1.5mm and Candy floss has a recommended hook size of 0.75mm – 1.25mm
I love that the colour scheme goes right through to all the yarn brands too. I can get the colour I like in the size yarn I need.
I knitted the elephant in Sugar Rush Yarn using size 1.75mm DPN needles and the clothing in Candy Floss yarn using 1.5mm DPN needles.
The small size needles I have are Knit Pro Karbonz. Sizes start at 1mm up to 6mm and cost around £8 a set. I’ve been using mine for several years but will soon replace them for needles without the tips.
While the tips are great on thicker yarns I found after years of use the tips have developed a gap where the tip cap ends, this catches on finer yarns. One tip has come off, but I was able to glue it back on. I also found a bit of drag using one needle and realised a bit of the metal plating has chipped off.
Saying all this, I have had many years use out of them and they’ve been good, but I’m replacing them with an all steel needle from HiyaHiya, they have DPNs in sizes from 0.70mm to 10mm. They’re a little harder to find, but a fraction cheaper and the one piece design means I won’t have problems with tips catching on yarn.
Anyway, back to the elephant. I made the elephant with the accompanying outfit, shorts and a textured jumper. Julie sells two additional shoe patterns, one with shoes attached and the other as stand alone shoes. I chose attached shoes and made pink trainers.
I decided that he wasn’t made for children so I used traditional glass bear eyes, 5mm in size. These actually are quite secure but not for children’s toys.
I love dolls with outfits you can change so I made him an additional outfit of green dungarees and a yellow and white striped t-shirt. The dungarees have two pockets and the pattern comes with a smaller rabbit or bear pattern that fits into the pocket. I might make this at some point.
You can see the size difference when I put the small elephant next to the original size head.
If you want to know more about Julie Williams animal patterns you can see the patterns on Etsy and Ravelry by searching little cotton rabbits, or read more about Julie from her website, http://www.littlecottonrabbits.com
Leave a Reply