Customer Reviews

Knitted Animals (Education S.)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

i had hesitated at spending $30 on a book that i could not see. when i received it i knew it was money well-spent.

the 17 patterns of adorable animals (in various small sizes perfect for holding in one's hand and tucking in one's pockets) are so very precious and heartwarming that its hard not to melt before you reach for your needles.

the book is well written with clear directions, drawings, and photos. the author encourages the use of natural fibers like mohair and angora. the patterns require very basic knitting skills - garter, stocking, increase, decrease, pick up 1 stitch. the needle sizes used are from 2-7 (u.s.)

there are cute verses introducing most of the critters. this is my favorite, for the very appropriately named 'cuddly bunny': "Warning! if you begin knitting this toy, you must count on being surrounded by children with a hopeful look in their eyes." this book will give you a case of the giggles.

what i love the best is how these critters are so unique in design. these are not the run-of-the-mill animal patterns that we've all seen over and over again. foxes, chicks, ducks, bears, cats, daschound, bunnies, piglets, horses, and more.--even a little hedgehog! these are very special knitted animals indeed.

The newest in my collection is a lovely little book called Knitted Animals by Anne-Dorthe Grigaff. This book includes patterns for duck & ducklings, growly bear, sheep/lamb, teddy bear, cat, dog, squirrel, goose, hare, horse, bunny, chicks, hens, cockerel, fox, pig, piglets, dachshund, hedgehog, and mouse. The bear, squirrel, fox, and hedgehog are the most unusual patterns and make this book worth getting if you need these characters to bring a story to life (I immediately thought about The Tomten and the Fox by Astrid Lindgren).

I really love the tone of this book. It is very warmly written (for example, patterns are titled "Cuddly cheeky dogs" or "Clip, clop, watch the jumping horse") and extremely detailed about how to assemble the projects (often the hardest part). This would be a good book for a parent with a young child, if you want to gently introduce them to the Waldorf philosophy, or as a gift for a 7 or 8 year old who you are teaching to knit. It also contains a handwork verse

Train your hands
Make busy your arms
Practice the clear power of thought
With the warm-heartedness of art
In your hand sleeps the spirit

I just got this book two days ago and I've already made the hen, rooster and chicks--yes, they are that simple! I really like the simplicity of the patterns as they lend themselves to adaptation by the knitter to make almost anything the imagination can dream up. Indeed, as the author is a teacher at a Waldorf school, she encourages children to learn to knit and to use these simple patterns themselves.

Increase the gauge and size of yarn and the patterns could be easily felted in the washing machine to create even more sturdy little figures. The size of the finished animals is just right for a child's hands. They're absolutely perfect! I love the fact that the author uses and suggests the use of natural fibers for her projects. I find it absolutely endearing to read that the materials list calls for, "duck colored yarn", "goose colored yarn" and "hairy yarn." With directions like that, the sky's the limit for the knitter's imagination. Such a nice contrast to the typical directions that call for a specific color of a specific brand of designer yarn that may or may not be available by day's end.

Finally, small projects like this are valuable in teaching the new or frustrated knitter to do that finishing work that so many of us detest. These little projects provide a wonderful opportunity for learning to sew invisible seams and create crisp corners.

My only complaint about this book is the price. I've never paid nearly $30 for a knitting book without seeing it first, but this one caught my fancy--what can I say, I'm addicted. Even at the high price, I think this little gem will pay for itself in short order and I'll certainly not return it. Excellent resource as those grandchildren begin to appear in the future!

The animals are adorable, and the patterns easy to understand for the most part. I will have to gain some skills to execute most of them since the book doesn't give directions on the more advanced stuff.

The book relies on cuteness and I think its one of the cutest ones out there. No dragons or people in here, there's kittens and dogs, bears, ducks, chickens, bunnies, and hedgehogs among others.

This book from Denmark assumes that the reader knows a few techniques without ever illustrating them. The animals are darling, but when trying to make a duck's beak, the reader is asked to fashion it out of orange yarn in "overlapping buttonhole stitch so a round duck-like beak emerges."

What? I don't know overlapping buttonhole stitch! Go to the glossary to find out, and there are explanations of garter stitch and stocking stitch, increasing and decreasing.....no mention of the other techniques called for.

This book is very worthwhile, but be ready to look some techniques up elsewhere. Not all of the animals require the more advanced methods, so I can get started right away.

USE WITH KIDS: It is written in a story book voice. There's no story, per se, but the reader is told that the dog may need a collar and leash if he is too wild, and so on.

This book is a great way to get started knitting stuffed animals. This book has easy to follow instructions and drawings of what the finished parts look like before assembly. The animals are all between 4-7 inches long. I had knit scarves before, but never anything much more complicated. I knit my first project- the sheep- in about 3 hours. And it was very cute! The little dog I knit for my second project was spunky and sweet looking at the same time. My one complaint is that I can't quite figure out how the tummies of the animals are supposed to be formed during the assembly- if you follow the directions exactly, you wouldn't be able to stuff the legs through the tummies. To fix this, I made little knit swaths (1 x 3 inches) to form the tummy. But this is an easy fix!
I would recommend this to anyone interested in making small-scale stuffed animals.

Got this for my 11 year old daughter, who loves crafts and animals. She dove right in and chose one of the more complicated patterns- the horse. In places the instructions were difficult to follow, so her aunt looked up techniques online and tried things out on a practice piece, and then showed her a best guess at what to do. With a little creative improvisation, she ended up with a cute horse of which she's quite proud!
Later she made a chick, which was much easier- she did it on her own in about an hour.
If you don't mind slightly vague instructions such as "Shape further by sewing a little here and there. Sew with an orange yarn in front for the beak", you'll have a lot of fun with this book. If you prefer more exact, detailed instructions, look elsewhere.

The 20 animals in this little hardcover book are undeniably cute.

But the directions are very spotty, particularly if you are a new knitter, or if you don't sew much.

Ms Grigaff tends to say things like, "Sew [the beak] in overlapping buttonhole stitch so a round duck-like beak emerges," without ever explaining what button-hole stitch is, or how you're supposed to do this. Or she'll say, "Sew with the rya rug stitch (see next page)..." But when you look at the next page, the explanation only says, "Rya Rug stitch is a kind of backwards and forwards stitch, but in this case, make every other stitch into a loop..." and doesn't say anything about the spacing or direction of these stitches, let alone a diagram of what it's supposed to look like.

The knitting instructions also assume that you have a fair amount of knitting experience. I really don't. So when, for instance, I was knitting the Pocketmouse (pg 58) and was left with 5 live stitches and the instruction "Break the yarn and pull it through the last stitch," it took some noodling around for me to realize that she must have meant to thread the yarn back through the last *five* stitches, take them off the needle, and draw them together. At least, I think that's what she meant.

However, all of that being said, if you are experienced, don't need your hand held, and don't mind goggling terms that aren't familiar to you, these little animals are darling, and very quick to make. They are so fast, in fact, that you might find that you can whip several stocking stuffers out of leftover yarn on Christmas eve!

The designs in this book are delightful. But the directions are puzzling. Perhaps because this seems to be translated from Danish, some of the instructions are difficult, if not impossible, to understand. I am not a career knitter - I've done a few Danish-like sweaters, a mess of scarves and comforters - so the finer points of detailed knitting are somewhat new to me. Still, I'm talking about straight ahead language: in the book you are instructed to work X number of rows, but you can't be sure if the row you've just been instructed to make (usually decreasing or increasing) should be included in that number of rows. In the hedgehog, the number of stitches you end up with after following what you seem to be told to do often doesn't line up with what the instructions tell you you should have. I'd like a knitting editor to go over this book and straighten the language out--clarify. I've guessed, and things have worked out pretty well, but I've been very frustrated. If you have uber experience knitting animals, maybe your instincts will get you through where I've had to puzzle through. Still, the designs are worth the effort. It's been called "sweet" by other reviewers, and I will second that. I just wish that, when I read the English, I come away understanding the concept. Maybe a technical editor could help?

that the stuffing didn't show through each picture - but I'll just use smaller needles and make smaller animals- the construction is very quick and easy, and the animals are all very cute so it still gets a high vote from me

This book is just wonderful, a friend of mine asked if I could knit a couple of toys for their 15 year old cat, as its favorite toys were shredded by a visiting puppy. I knit the duck and pig and put inside little bags of catnip. I also knit the baby duckling and a mouse. They come out looking exactly like the photo's. My friend loved them and best of all the cat does too and plays with them everyday. Thank you to Anne-dorthe Grigaff, your ideas are fantastic and I will be looking out for other books by you.
Wendy CA