Tired?

How about snuggling up next to Sleepy Sam? I kid you not, that's his name, not given by me, but by Sandra Polley from this book.

I was looking through several knitted toys books, to find a toy which I could make with my 170yds of handspun, when I stumbled upon this little guy. How could I NOT knit him?

This April, I dyed 16oz of Norwegian fiber. 4oz of it was this orange roving. I was burning to know how it would look spun up, so I did, and then I wanted to see how it would look as knit fabric.

I tried to spin thicker as usual. I thought I would navajo ply it, but since it was already thicker singles, I would have been left with not a lot of yardage, so I did a 2-ply instead. It turned out to be 170 yds, 13 WPI - mostly. Next step was to find a pattern. I knew I wanted to knit a toy, and can you imagine my joy, when I found "Sleepy Sam", and that in fact I could knit him with my yarn?

I've knit all pieces as described in the book, but something WAS horrible wrong with the body parts. It looked like the head was on the wrong way. Head and body were knit in one piece. I thought I screwed up, but I don't think so. So this bear has his belly on the back side. Good thing he's so comfortable sleeping in this position, because he would have a hard time being upright. I was really put out, when I realized this, walked away, but in the end still continued to sew up the pieces, stuff them, and once I had the face on him, I was in LOVE!

Sandra Polley suggests that you iron the pieces, but in the past, I didn't have much success with ironing, the edges still rolled in quite madly. So I soaked all pieces, pinned them out, and let them dry. It was so much better, and so much easier to sew them together.

One other thing I didn't agree with the author. She said to put pellets into the belly, like a beany baby. She just pours them inside, without putting them into a little bag or something. (I didn't read the book cover to cover, so she might have mentioned something about a bag somewhere, but I didn't find anything.) Of course, lazy that I am, cutting corners where ever I can, I did as told, and the pellets tend to come out easily. Lesson learned. Don't be lazy. Take sewing needle, and a scrap of fabric and sew a little bag!

I did his face twice. I wanted him to smile in his sleep. I think I've got it. The soles, and the inside of his paws where supposed to be knit with a different colored yarn, but I liked it just fine, the way the handspun turned out. I even had some left over yarn. I'm definitely going to knit toys with my handspun again.