Teddy Bear's Picnic

Well it definitely felt like summer hit this weekend! The weather has been glorious, we had a BBQ at home last night, and were still sitting outside chatting at nearly 10pm in the not-quite-dark! I've also changed over to the summer duvet on my bed, put my boots away and got my sandals out, and painted my toenails. I think it's just wrong to be wearing sandals without pretty coloured toes! The only slight downer on my weekend is that I got ever so slightly sunburnt shoulders yesterday, even though I can't have been out in the direct sun for more than half an hour - I should have learnt by now really, I know I burn quickly but I just didn't put any sun cream on - oops!

Anyway, it's another lovely hot and sunny day today and I'm hoping to enjoy some of it before we are apparently forecast some rain for the rest of the week - how accurate this is remains to be seen!

I'm going to post later in the week about the Margot pyjama trousers I made from the pattern in Love at First Stitch, but today I wanted to share a couple of knitted lovelies.

My cousin had a baby a couple of weeks ago, and as I had a while to prepare, I decided to look for a teddy bear pattern to knit for the little one when she arrived. I found this pattern by Debbie Bliss on Ravelry and thought it was a very good looking bear (some I've seen can look decidedly deformed...)

I made up one first in some leftover double knitting yarn that I had from my Christmas jumper to see how the pattern worked and if I could manage to stuff it to look right. Except for the fact that I think my tension is a bit loose so some of the stuffing is starting to poke through, I think he turned out OK.

For the baby, I actually ended up co-ordinating with Mum, who knitted a blanket in some pretty 4 ply colours, and there was enough left for a little matching teddy. I knitted the body and head pieces in the multi-coloured yarn, and the arms and legs in pale purple. This one definitely turned out better I think, I stuffed it a bit more firmly and the tension in the 4 ply seems to be tighter, I also used quite tiny needles. I did have to finish all the sewing up and stuffing in one go and a half formed teddy just looked wrong! A finishing touch of a smart purple ribbon and little teddy was ready to go. I've since been informed that she has been named Violet and sits watch in the baby's moses basket, so that's a lovely compliment.

My Nan has just commissioned me to make two more teddy bears for the boys in the family next door to her, so I'll have a proper teddy bear's picnic going before too long!  In other knitting news, I finished the back of the newest jumper I'm working on, and have started on the sleeves. I'm having a go and knitting two sleeves at the time on a circular needle, and haven't got in too much of a tangle yet!