Friday, November 03, 2006

Soaring Eagles Project















So, here's the first of what I hope will be at least a dozen knitted bunnies for the Soaring Eagles Project. If you're looking for some charity knitting, consider Soaring Eagles. Go to the blog, read the stories of these children.... Me, I just couldn't not knit for them.

But back to the bunny...she's a cutie pie, isn't she? She fits perfectly in the palm of my hand, which makes me think she'll be just the right size for a pre-K or kindergarden-aged child to hold. Can you believe this is made entirely out of a single 8"x8" square of stockinette stitch, with just the two little ears added on afterwards?

You can find the free pattern here.

4 comments:

Ren said...

yours is so cute! does the seaming go quickly for you?

Andrea said...

Hi, I saw the felted bowl you posted on One-Skein Knit Along site, and I wanted to know how you finished it. It's my first time to make the bowl, and I don't understand the instructions on finishing the project.

Splindarella said...

Hi, Andrea

The bowl is finished exactly the same way a hat is. Once the bowl is the specified length (5 1/2 inches long if you're making the small bowl), you work about 7 decreases evenly spaced along one round, then work the next round even, then another round with the same number of decreases spaced evenly again, then another even round until you have only about 8 stitches left on your needles.

In the book, they're picky about how they make their decreases (K2tog one way, SSK the other way) so that the visible lines you get when you decrease slant in nice "v" shapes. However, if it's throwing you off, don't bother being picky. Do whatever decrease is easiest for you (I find K2tog to be the easiest for me) for all the decreases. This means your decrease lines will look like the spokes of a wheel, but since you're felting the bowl, you shouldn't even see the lines once your bowl is all finished, so I wouldn't worry.

Working one decrease round and then one even round makes the hat/bowl more rounded; if you work decreases in every round, you'll wind up with more of a flat-bottomed bowl (think pillbox hat) instead of a bowl with a rounded bottom. Once you have the 8 or so stitches left, just break off your yarn and draw the yarn through those last few stitches nice and tight to close up the hole, tie it off, weave in the end and felt.

Honestly, I've found the pattern to be very forgiving, so if you don't follow it exactly, I wouldn't worry too much about it. As long as you somehow wind up with a vaguely hat-shaped item that you toss in the wash and felt, chances are you'll end up with a nice looking bowl.

The only thing I really DO recommend is NOT using stockinette stitch all the way through. The first bowls I did that way had a curled lip because the stockinette rolled and then felted together. Lately I've been working 3 garter ridges (knit one round, purl one round for 6 rounds total) and then switching to stockinette, and IMHO it makes a BIG improvement in how the finished bowls turn out.

HTH!

Andrea said...

Thanks so much for your quick reply and your suggestions. I'm working on the bowl this week-end. I plan to make several as gifts for Christmas.