I found a lovely video of Diana Sullivan machine knitting a bunny, based on a design by Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer.
I don't like sewing. This is not a revelation if you have been paying attention, but this particular item did rather tickle my fancy. So I decided to give it a go.
I had some really fine yarn which I am struggling with. I bought the beige and the deeper pink in a charity shop for very little money. They are both 2/30nm, and that is really very thin!
The deeper pink seems to have belonged to someone with a love of scalpels! It was cut, pretty deeply in places, meaning there were lots of small lengths of yarn on the cone, and not anything that was useful.
Rather than throw it away, I have been using it as thread to mark places on knitting, and, finally, I reached the place where it was no longer cut!
As they are both so thin, I didn't like the drape they gave when single threaded - my machine is a standard gauge and it's just really not suitable. So I tried doubling them, and it made a really pretty fabric!
This has a much nicer drape, and is amazingly soft. I don't actually know what either yarn is, but they are lovely.
So I followed Diana's video and made a square that was 60 stitches wide and 90 rows deep using T4. I needed to keep the claw weights in place as the whole thing was pretty light, and it knitted up beautifully. I ended up with a square which was 17cm each way.
I then made the ears as per the video. Unfortunately, there were no extra instructions for the amount of stitches or rows needed, so I just went with what Diana used on the mid-gauge, which may have resulted in the ears being a bit on the small side!
However, with all 3 pieces done, I pinned and steam-blocked the square to make it nice and flat to work with. And sewed in the extra ends on the ears.
Once everything was cool and ready, I started to assemble my bunny.
I marked where the head should go and sewed running stitch around it to gather it up later. Then I started to manipulate the legs and sew them on my Singer.
Sewing machines and I rarely get along. I tried using the tiny zigzag Diana suggests, and that went very badly. Instead I used a straight stitch, and that was 'better' for a very iffy given value of better.
Once I had all the legs sewn together, I pulled through the head and started the stuffing process.
Scary looking isn't it? Like a snowsuit missing a baby?
I began to suspect I needed to have given her a bigger head at this point.
So I ran with it, and stuffed and twisted and tacked and added ears, and I ended up with this!
She's a bit of a bruiser! All muscle and very little finesse! I do love her tail, though.
Dylan and I made pompoms together while we watched the GBBO semi-final. His was really great, especially for his very first one!
I think my next bunny needs a bigger head and ears, and much less muscle!
