notes on bunny patterns

Boring stuff coming. Just warning you.



On the Tea Cup Bunny:

Might be best if you try in a smooth yarn first, to get the feel of the overall shape. If you think the head looks kind of wide (I think mine does), add a few more rounds, stopping to flatten the opening together to check your proportions. If you do add a few rounds, add the same number to the body, and check that before sewing together as well. I followed the pattern exactly (except I might have accidentally added or skipped stitches, because fuzzy yarn makes it hard to see where they are), but my yarn was kinda bulky, which makes the shape a little different. If I'd added rounds, my bunny would be bigger, but he wouldn't have looked quite so squatty. Also might be a good idea to note how many rows you have when you do the first ear, so the other can be the same length. Just saying.



(I actually think mine looks sort of like an evil Gremlin. Just before you've fed them after midnight, you know? Like it's about to turn on me, no matter how cute it looks now. Twin1 agrees with me. It's currently confined in a tea cup, but is perilously close to many crocheted foods.)



anyway



On the Knitted Bunny:

Unless you want to practice your stockinette stitch until you've got it absolutely perfect, or maybe you're learning to pick instead of throw, don't cast on 40 stitches in a worsted weight. Especially if it's something fuzzy. A square of that size can take a bit of time. And, as we already observed, fuzzy doesn't frog well, so you can't just rip it back and start over with fewer stitches. (Wondering why you can't just abandon the piece, move on to what you wished you'd done in the first place? How rude! It's not the yarns fault you didn't think this through. You can always give away a finished (failed?) piece, but trashing or "donating" a WIP? The mere thought makes me anxious.) Try it in fingering/sock weight, on size 2's, maybe 20 stitches or so. Even if your only leftover sock yarn is rainbow striped, and you're thinking that maybe you would do one that size, if only you had some in white (??? who would waste their knitting time on plain white socks?), pretty pastels (I'm not a pastel socks kind of gal, apparently), or could locate the left-overs of that subtle grey stripe, because that "Crayon" colorway seems a bit much for a tiny knitted bunny, and besides, those are the socks you need to darn, which is why the yarn is right there (and has been there for quite some time - see "Mend It"), and you might need all of it just to mend your socks and still leave enough for that knitted piece that belongs to your Madame De Farge doll.
Or how about that nice pale pink sport-weight sitting right over there under the desk? Pink is good for bunnies. Better yet, dig out a gauge swatch and a little extra of that same yarn, even if it's bright green, and start there. Just stitch up the bunny from your already knitted gauge square (you weren't using it for anything else now anyway), and add the ears. Wish I had a gauge swatch handy. Might do, if I ever bothered to do one.