Fun Tiny Knit Bunny Basket

 There are always things to make for friends and family.  This time I saw several videos on making bunnies to use for treats. I combined two or three of them and came up with this bunny basket.  It is about six inches long and 2 inches tall at the ears.  Maybe a little more.

The basics:  knit (or maybe crochet) as square.  Fold in half and, with a running stitch, stitch across the center and then up to the top and back down to the other side to form a triangle of running stitches.  Pull up the threads to make a "bunch" where you will insert some fiberfill to make a head. Don't put in a lot of the fiberfill. With the threads you pulled up to make the head, secure very tightly at the back of the head then take a few stitches up through between the ears and back down to the back of the neck.  Secure firmly. Weave in the end on the one ear then use a running stitch to secure the back of the bunny.  Pull up tightly and secure well. Glue on a pom pom for a tail and glue on goo goo eyes but if you are giving to a young child you might consider embroidering the eyes. I am not good at embroidering so I glued on cute eyes.  You could also put on a face if embroidery is one of your talents.  Not mine so my bunny baskets are just "all-seeing" bunnies who do not have to be fed.

 

After knitting your "square, put running stitches through. You can actually use one thread across the bottom then another one on each of the triangle sides.  I just used one after the first few bunnies. It worked just fine.

This shows where I pulled up the threads to form (and stuff) the head.

Here are the threads ready to sew up through the ears from the back of the head to secure them in place.  The neck stitches have already been pulled tight.

The needle has started the running stitches around the back of the "basket" part of the bunny.  Pull tight and secure.

Here is the basket opening visible.  Now just the pom pom tail is needed and the eyes.

  

Three bunny basket cousins ready to have plastic eggs filled with treats or to be filled with candies or other treats and placed inside the basket.  Some of the people I make these for will get rabbit food inside instead of pernicious chocolate. (I keep telling myself that chocolate is pernicious in hopes that I will hear it and stop acquiring any more for our house....)

The squares I made were all knitted on the Brother KX 350 flatbed plastic knitting machine.

Cast on 28 stitches with e-wrap.

Knit 45 rows at Tension 6 (for this I Love This Yarn from Hobby Lobby--so many spring colors...)

Knit Row 46 at Tension 9.5.

Bind off.

Make bunny basket.

Be sure to put weights on your knitting after row 2 or 3 or 4.

First Slipper Sock on Mid-Gauge Knitting Machine

 Yesterday morning I woke up early and had a fair amount of energy having only awakened once during the night!  So nice!  So I went to town on quite a few projects, including clearing off the work table. Again!  When the table jobs were done I went to the KX-350 knitting machine and attempted Anna Haferman's Slipper Sock.

This is what it looked like when it was done.  If you follow the pattern precisely and have no problems, it will not look like this.  You will notice that the toe is rather wonky and very short.  It should not have been. Also you can see the red marker where the dropped stitch is collected...

The problem with knitting the toe was that as I started it (short-row toe) I failed to put weights on the middle part.  All of a sudden, out of nowhere, those middle stitches leaped off the needles.  Now, this is NOT what you want to have happen!  Being resourceful, and somewhat confident, I started picking up the stitches and returning them to the needles.  I was somewhat successful, but only somewhat!  They looked pretty good BUT #1--I had dropped a stitch and did not notice, and #2--I could not remember where I had been in the short-rowing sequence.  

Well, since I was now somewhat stressed, I decided to go ahead as if I had finished the toe. I finished knitting the top of the sock (this sock is started at the back of the ankle with 16 rows of mock ribbing in a tighter gauge than the sock itself, worked past the ankle to the short-row heel, then the foot stitches, short-row toe, then the top of the foot and ankle stitches and concluding with another mock rib then the sides are mattress-stitched together) and realized I did not know how to knit the mock ribbing from the bottom up. I had to stop and watch Anna's video again. It seemed straightforward so I gave it a try.  Seeming to be done, I sewed the sock off the machine and sat down to mattress stitch the sides.  By this time I was REALLY stressed because it was getting close to the time I needed to leave for another ministering route visiting trip. I had been working for seven hours on the various projects and I just wanted this one done, so I called it good, even though it was not even mildly good.

Well, you can see the mess I made of it BUT may I say I did learn a lot!  Also, this slipper sock will not fit my big toe!  Sad. I will re-work the numbers and try again.  If it turns out I don't have enough yarn, there is sock I can rip out to re-use that yarn!  It may be a few days before I get to the knitting machine again.  With all good luck, next week some time.

Vacation Preparations!!

 We did not have a vacation for nearly five years.  We have a timeshare and "banked" the weeks we should have used. Now those weeks are going to go away if we do not use them, so now we have scheduled a second vacation.  This time we will be about half an hour from my sister.  That will be so great to spend time with her and her family.  Plus we will be able to help with the Cherry Point MCAS Thanksgiving dinner by making pies.  Dear One will help serve the Marines at the base.

Well, getting ready to go happened in a week that was already completely full.  So hard to get things together.  When we arrived at the vacation condo we found I had left some things at home...This may be because the night before, I awoke before midnight and was awake until 6 AM.  Have not had a night as rough as that for a while.

Around 4 AM I had already used up all the quiet, in-the-other-room projects, so I moved into our bedroom where the Brother KX 350 knitting machine is set up.  I had seen a YouTube video by Anna Haferman about knitting a pumpkin.  I followed her pattern and made this pumpkin:

Anna's pattern called for casting on 80 stitches.  I wanted a smaller pumpkin so I cast on 50 stitches then did a bit of math to figure out the spacing of the pattern stitches.  It did turn out.  Well, I seem to remember that I set the tension at 3.5 which is pretty tight, but there was not a lot of trouble with the fluffy stuffing showing through those stitches.

So, it was not fabulous but it could have been worse.  I wanted to bring a gift to my sister and this is what it turned out to be.  Plus a dozen little orange boxes with green pompom stems on top and Hershey's Kisses and Peanut Butter Cups inside.