Howdy, knitting friends! This week, I evicted a mini sock yarn bunny from the yarn bowl. He was such a fun toy to knit, and it was great seeing him peek out of my yarn bowl while I was working on him. But he’s a finished object now, so it’s time to make room in the bowl for something else. More on him later in the post, let’s start by looking at what’s been going on in my knitting world the past week.

The Mini Sock Yarn Bunny came off my needles this week and got evicted from his yarn bowl.

This Week In Podcasts

Once again, I stayed on top of all my knitting podcasts this week. I’m so proud of myself, even it it was a bit of a slow week in the knitting podcast world. Coming out of my iPod were new podcasts from Fiber Hooligan, Ewe University, and Knitting Pipeline. I also listened to a lot of the CraftLit podcast, which is putting me very much on track to be all caught up with Age Of Innocence before the next book starts, so I’m really excited about that.

On Fiber Hooligan, Benjamin interviewed Romi Hill and we learned about lace shawls, and an app and ebook subscription Romi has for her patterns. In Ewe University Episode 17, Dr. Kelly gave me a shout-out because I posted a link to the Ravellenic Games event list in the Ewe U Ravelry forum. It was pretty cool to hear my name on a podcast for the 2nd week in a row. I wonder what podcast will mention me this week! 😉 As always with Ewe University, I really enjoyed the “In The Classroom” segment. This week, Dr. Kelly talked about Waldorf education, and how knitting is a part of the process. It was very interesting. She also reviewed the Addi Lace Clicks interchangeable needles. I enjoyed that review and will seriously consider the Addi Clicks next time I decide I’m in the market for interchangeable needles. If I can talk myself out of getting the Knitter’s Pride Karbons instead. Knitting Pipeline Episode 158: Variation on a Theme of Quiver Mitts was another edition of Knitting Pipeline featuring one of Paula’s friends, Bronwyn (and her 5-year old son). These episodes are precious. It was especially fun to listen to Paula show Bronwyn the Quiver Mitts that Paula had knitted from Bronwyn’s pattern. Paula and Bronwyn also talked about the Ravellenic Games (there’s a Knitting Pipeline team), and the more I hear people talking about it, the more the whole thing is starting to make sense for me. I’m looking forward to participating in the games.

This Week In Ravelry

I made it through another week without queuing anything on Ravelry! That’s two weeks in a row now — I think I deserve an award. I continue to have a hard time keeping up with all the conversations in the forums. So I read what I can, skim a lot, and poke my head out with a post every now and again. I did a little more reading about the Ravellenic Games, in order to help get a handle on what I’m going to be doing. I’m planning on doing Giraffe by Susan B. Anderson, and after looking at the Ravelry pages for folks who have already completed it, I think it will definitely be a challenge for me to get it all knitted during the Olympics. We’ll see how it goes.

This Week On My Needles

I’m continuing to make progress on Dad’s Second Sock. Still in the cuff, but moving along nicely. I didn’t do any work on Blueberry’s Adaline. It’s one of my 2014 goals to finish that, so I really need to make an effort to get it back out of the project bag. It’s just hard to get motivated on it when I’m in stockinette hell…. The big news for my needles is having finished my Mini Sock Yarn Bunny, which led to him getting evicted from my new yarn bow.

Yarn Bowl Eviction: The Mini Sock Yarn Bunny

For Christmas, my wife got me a gift certificate to a wonderful yarn bowl. She got the certificate so that I could choose my own colors, and I did, and it recently arrived. I am enjoying working out of a yarn bowl, and will probably devote an entire post about the yarn bowl sometime down the road. For now, suffice it to say that I absolutely love it, and the Mini Sock Yarn Bunny was having a great time hanging out in the yarn bowl while I worked on him.

On Saturday, with the addition of a pom-pom tail, I put the finishing touches on the bunny. I absolutely love him!

This Mini Sock Yarn Bunny is a delight to knit, and sure to be a treasured toy.

But as much as I love him, I couldn’t let him hang out in the yarn bowl indefinitely. I have other projects to concentrate on, and it was time for him to move along. So I evicted him. Tough love.

The Mini Sock Yarn Bunny is the little sibling to the Opal Sock Yarn Bunny. I want to knit the big one, but I thought the mini-sized one would be a good practice warm-up. It was! I’m really looking forward to casting on for the original sized one, now. Like all of Susan’s patterns, this was extremely well-written and easy to follow. Every technique was fully described and reading the pattern felt like I had a friend coaching me on how to knit it. The bunny construction is great. You do the head first, including the ears, then you pick up stitches on the bottom of the head to start the body. I learned a lot doing this, and improved my technique on things I already knew. This was the first time I’ve worked with poly pellets and safety eyes, and it’s nice to get comfortable with them.I’m getting so much better with the M1 increase, which really makes me feel good. Using the “afterthought” technique for the ears, arms, and legs was an inspired design choice, and by the time I was doing the legs, I was very comfortable with how it worked.

More and more, as I discover that I really am a toy knitter, the more I appreciate how toys — even a small one like this — really do a great job of teaching technique that can be used in other non-toy knitting projects. While I do believe that I am a process knitter — I love the knitting for the knitting, not necessarily for the thing it creates — there is a  lot of satisfaction surrounding getting a project completed in a short time period. Toys like this help fulfill the need to have a finished product.

I highly recommend this as a great toy pattern. I think it’s something that even an advanced beginner could easily tackle. If you knit up one of these, please let me know (and show pictures), so I can celebrate with you.

What have you leaded from toy knitting? Join the conversation by leaving a comment below!

Until next week, keep on knitting for the ones you love!

-greg