Pink panther's Olympic bid - crochet cat on the loose

A few weeks ago the BBC ran an update about the £500,000 Arts Council commission to celebrate the Olympics. The East Midlands artist Shauna Richardson had completed all three 30ft Olympic lions crocheted  in local wool. Out of all the original contenders this had been my favourite, but I was quite amazed at the audacity of the project.  The wool is quite rough apparently and unsurprisingly Shauna did admit to sore fingers from time to time.

The project set me off thinking about knitting a quick little cat of my own. I looked through a stream of cute woolly felines on Ravelry and tried downloading a free pattern from Japan. Despite the translation and a multitude of diagrams it totally defeated me. It may have been down to the different stitch notations that are used in different parts of the world. Anyhow I eventually set off on a venture of my own. 

No sore fingers for me! I decided to use up some really soft 3ply fingering in pink. Well it was never going to be too realistic. There is definitely room for improvement and I thinks she needs a bit more to eat. But she doesn't bite and when asked most recognise her many cat like qualities.

I will definitely be off to Chatsworth to see Shauna Richardson masterpieces when the go on show before I try another one.

Little big heads - knitters beware

Zip up top for two year old

How time flies! My youngest grandchild has passed his second birthday already. Rather late in the day for a creative hand knit to add to his birthday booty I decided to haul out my old but trusty Knitmaster 155 knitting machine with its equally vintage KR6 knit radar.
To ring the changes on the standard raglan sleeve jumper I went for a cosy high neck with a front zip opening. I was quite pleased with the outcome. It had been a bit touch and go as to whether there was sufficient of the yarn I had selected which is a lovely pure wool in variegated grey browns - perfect chocolaty toddler camouflage.
A shame then that I had slightly underestimated the size of the young gentleman's head so that the garment had to come home with me again after a birthday outing to West Yorkshire. No matter how brainy you may think the infant it seems its very hard to be too generous when calculating the neck opening for a young child as the head's of all children are proportionally larger at that age.  Another lesson relearned the hard way! But its all OK now.