Customer Reviews

World of Knitted Toys

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

OK, where else are you going to find a pattern for knitting a stuffed clownfish? I have made 5 of them so far - two for nieces, and then 3 more for people who saw me knitting the first two, and demanded their own. The clownfish pattern is straighforward, simple. And accurate - the number of stripes, the placement of the fins and the coloring of the tail - all accurate! I am currently adapting the pattern, which is easy to do since it's simple, to make a garabaldi damselfish and a couple of different butterflyfish and angelfish.

The book is divided into sections - jungle, north woods, ocean, australian outback. Each section includes some kind of human character: a Polynesian pearl diver in the sea section, for example, and an Australian sheep farmer in the Australian section, a Canadian Mountie in the North Woods section.

The variety of animals is astounding: everything from platypus to moose. I have already purchased the yarn to do the platypus, once I finally manage to make fish for everyone who wants one. There's chipmunks, beavers, cats, tigers, merino sheep, sharks, octopus, zebra...

The pictures are so good, people who don't even know how to knit have spent time in my armchair leafing through the book, admiring them and asking if I can teach them to knit, because these animals are so inspiring, so cute!

I received this book from Amazon less than a week ago, and have already completed the parrot, have bought the yarn for the platypus and wombat, and am looking forward to trying my hand at just about every creature in the book! My son sees me knitting all the time (I also teach knitting) and asked me to knit him a parrot. I suppose I might have figured out a pattern on my own, but how happy I was when I saw one of the reviews for "World of Knitted Toys" by Kath Dalmeny that mentioned there was a parrot pattern included! I did some alterations..making the parrot a "love bird" rather than a macaw, because that is the kind of parrot my son wanted. It was quite easy to knit, the instructions were relatively easy to follow, and alterations in color were not a problem. I did have to get used to how Ms. Dalmeny wrote out her instructions, as it's a bit different from the usual patterns found here in the U.S.A., but once I got the hang of how she expressed herself, it was clear as day to me. None of the patterns appear unduly complicated or difficult. Anyone with even modest experience with knitting can have great success with these projects. I am really happy with this book, and consider it a true "knitter's treasure"!

If you can do the basics (knit, purl, cast on/off) plus increase and decrease, you can make anything in this book. There is one pattern with intarsia (a pig with spots), but it's simply a variation of a standard pattern. Patterns marked "challenging" have colour changes, but only at the ends of rows. This book, along with Jean Greenhowe's _Knitted_Toys_ and Sharon Welch's _Knitted_Toys_ (both sadly out of print), are must-haves for this genre of knitting.

As a beginning knitter, I looked everywhere for a book of easy toys to knit. When I saw the cover of this book online, I immediately thought, "Nope. Can't do it. That book has to be for experts." Thankfully, the reviewers here said otherwise, and their words gave me the confidence to give it a try! Within only a few days I had completed two of the "arctic theme" projects. Believe the reviewers here--even if you are relatively new to knitting, you can do these projects!

With the wide variety of "fun yarns" out these days, you will have limitless possibilities when knitting up these animals. This is a must for anyone who likes both animals and knitting. Get ready for lots of fun!

This book is just excellent. The patterns are simple and beautiful. She lists them as "easy", "straightforward" or "challenging" but many of the challenging ones are only marked that way because they have a lot of colour switching, which you can replace with solid or variegated yarn (the barn cat looks even more authentic this way and it becomes very easy to knit).

The toys knit up fast, with the majority of shaping done through simple increases and decreases on one larger piece instead of a zillion little bits and pieces that you have to sew together. She really leads you through it in small, easy steps, explaining everything as she goes along so that you never get lost or bewildered.

In an evening or two you can have a gorgeous and very inexpensive handmade toy to give away as a birthday gift, or keep for yourself or your kids. A great way to use up odds and ends of yarn, and the toys look just as lovely knit in inexpensive acrylic worsted as they do in the DK wool she uses. This book is worth every penny!

I was very eager to get this book, since I love to knit toys, but I have to say I wasn't fully thrilled.

First off, the toys in the illustrations look lumpy and their stuffing is showing. That was a bit of a turn-off.

Secondly, the patterns can be a bit hard to follow. I've only made the elephant so far, but I had to rip out a reknit the trunk because the directions were pretty vague. (In the author's defense, the elephant DID turn out very cute, and the recepient DID love him. That's why the book gets four stars!)

Additionally, unlike other toy books I've used, it's hard to get these toys to look cute. They just come out looking a little off, to me. That may be subjective.

Thirdly, the book really misrepresents the sizes of the finished toy. The elephant came out quite a bit bigger than promised. Plan accordingly, and have spare yarn and lots of stuffing on hand. Plus, the animal sizes are all over the place. That's not a problem unless you're trying to create a realistic forest, however. If you are, beware that the beaver will be twice the size of the moose. But if you don't care about the toys' size relative to each other, it really makes no difference.

On the plus side, this book has some of the most unusual animals you'd ever want to knit. Like a duck-billed platypus. It's worth getting just for that.

Also, I thought the shaping for the elephant's body was quite ingenious, in how the decreases were placed and how the gusset was worked. The book gets a plus for that.

Overall, I'd say that while I'm not as thrilled as the general public, and while it's not my most favorite book ever, I do plan on keeping this book and making many more toys from it.

As far as difficulty level: all of these toys can be made by someone who can cast on and off, knit, purl, increase, decrease (k2tog), and seam. Really! There are toys listed as "easy" and "challenging," but if you just have these skills, I promise you you can make any toy in here (provided you're patient enough to do the seaming. There is ALOT of seaming in some of these toys!)

I love this book. There is so much variety. Trust me, this book will not end up sitting in the bookshelf and forgotten.

I am an intermediate knitter and was excited to find this book online. It has many great animals to knit, some that are rather quirky. However, I find her patterns to be somewhat difficult to follow. When she refers to rows she seems to include both the knit and purl rows into one row, which I haven't seen before, so when she says "work 10 rows" you're really working 20. It makes the patterns confusing. I have a friend who is working on the zebra and has also run into technical errors.

If you can do the basics (knit, purl, cast on/off) plus increase and decrease, you can make anything in this book. There is one pattern with intarsia (a pig with spots), but it's simply a variation of a standard pattern. Patterns marked "challenging" have colour changes, but only at the ends of rows. This book, along with Jean Greenhowe's _Knitted_Toys_ and Sharon Welch's _Knitted_Toys_ (both sadly out of print), are must-haves for this genre of knitting.

I'm a knitting veterinarian, and I got this book to make a couple of toys for my young kids - but my boss saw me working on a pig, and asked me to make some animals for the office. I told him I'd get to it after I finish the ones for my kids. Well. So far the kids have had me make each one a pig (I have 3 kids, so that's 3 pigs), and two ducks, and I'm working on a sheep. This is a great book. I consider myself a beginning knitter with advanced beginner to early intermediate skill. I have knitted one sweater in my life, and it was for a 2 yr old. I have made one small baby blanket, and several scarves, and that is about it. Oh, and one small 2 yr old sized jumper-dress. So, you know, I'm no Nancy Needles! But the patterns are pretty well written and easy to do, nothing fancy. If I can do it, so can you. The one thing I wish is that the number of rows always added up the way the author says they should (you know: work 2 rows, then work 8 more for a total of 10, then work 3 more for a total of 12, wait, um, no...) but it really doesn't matter, because it is always clear if you need to be knitting or purling, and what's one row extra if you're making a sheep anyway??