Mini Knitting - A Bunny for Beatrix and the Three Bears

This all started because of a friendship between my youngest son and a little girl called Beatrix. We wanted to give her a birthday present, but had all been ill, so the project was late.  I decided to find a very small knitting project that I could knit up fast to give to her. I stumbled across Little Cotton Rabbits' blog and her free patterns for itty bitty rabbits and bears. Once I had knitted the rabbit and a dress to go with it, I realised she would get a lot more enjoyment out of it as a plaything if I actually knitted a small change of clothes for the bunny.

Here's the first outfit:

and here's the set of clothes she ended up with. 

Then a lady in my knitting circle was expecting a baby and the whole knitting circle was invited to her baby shower. Again, I didn't have a lot of time on my hands so I opted to knit a mini bear for her from Little Cotton Rabbits' itty bitty pattern again. This then spurred me on to knit a whole family - a symbol of her life to come - as this was the lady's first baby.

 If you're wondering just how small these guys are, here's baby bear and his "bunny rug" with the size 13 Imperial (or 2.25mm Metric/Size 1 US) needles I bought from our local op shop.

It's funny. This project was supposed to be a bit of a stash buster, using up some scrap yarn, but alas I found myself drawn to a turquoise and brown yarn on special in Spotlight (Papa Bear's colouring) and then some lovely brown bear coloured skeins for Mama and Baby Bear. I just can't help myself!

I might add too that I have a real phobia of facial embroidery on toys. As we know, the eyes are the window to a soul, and if you get their position or their size a bit out of proportion on a toy, it won't look cute. I have, however, found some terrific resources on the web. There is Susan B Anderson's Youtube tutorial "Facial Embroidery on Knitted Toys" and the MochiMochiLand website Eye Eye tutorial. Go there, if you're on the wary side, when it comes to facial feature embroidery.