The Easter Bunny's Coming

My almost 2 year old daughter is at that age of discovery where every second she asks (or demands) "what's that?". She was particularly curious about the brightly coloured shiny eggs and bunnies that started appearing in the supermarket a month or so ago. I explained to her that "the Easter Bunny is coming" and to my surprise she has been happy enough with this explanation so far. This year Easter will be a lot of fun. I'm planing an Easter egg hunt I'm the garden for her, at the end of which she will find a gorgeous knitted bunny!

I purchased the pattern for Ysolda's knitted rabbit Sophie last July but after one too many failed attempts at the fiddly disappearing loop cast on I gave it up. Easter gave me the perfect excuse to pick it up again but this time I did things a little differently. Firstly I did not try to knit it with acrylic yarn (I feel nauseous just thinking about the stuff I started to use last time), I bought myself a set of 3mm Knitpro Symfonie Wood DPNs, and most importantly I convinced my mum to do a Sophie knitalong with me.

We spent about half an hour huddled in front of the computer with out knitting needles trying to make sense of the instructions for creating the disappearing loop cast on. There was a lot of swearing, and dropped needles, and more swearing! But we both got there in the end. The head and body knitted up beautifully and quickly. I love Ysolda's ability to incorporate the increases and decreases into the character of the toy, and stuffing as you go and attaching appendages by picking up stitches means that there is now seaming or sewing in ends.

I've knitted the legs now and am half way through the first arm. The legs were straight forward enough but the arm was a bit tricking to begin with due to the head getting in the way and maneuvering 5 needles in such a tight space.