Australia’s Ex-PM Knit Kangaroo for Royal Baby

Julia Gillard has been ousted as the first female prime minister in Australia’s history, but not without making a last bit of knitting-related news. Gillard has long been known to be a knitter, and she particularly enjoys knitting for babies (don’t we all?).

She told the Australian Women’s Weekly that she was knitting a red kangaroo for the British royal baby because “I just thought that it would be a cute project to work on. I thought I would set myself the challenge of knitting a little stuffed toy, and why not a kangaroo?”

Some said the cute story was a last-stitch effort to woo voters, but it clearly didn’t work, as she’s handed power back over to her predecessor.

Still, I’d like to see the finished object, wouldn’t you?

[Photo via the Australian Women’s Weekly.]

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Linen stitch is one of my favorite knitting stitch patterns that, every time I use it in a project, I think about how I don’t use it often enough.

It’s an easy stitch to make, with slip stitches done with the yarn held to the front of the work on the right/front side and to the back on the wrong/back side, which makes the strand of yarn a visible part of the pattern.

It also makes a fabric that is thick and looks kind of like a woven fabric.

I recently used linen stitch to make a double-thick pot holder, which I worked in a kind of interesting way. I didn’t want to have to do any sewing on the project, so I started it from a crochet cast on and picked up stitches from the side of the cast on to make the hot pad all in one piece in the round with the edge sealed.

This requires working on two circular needles, which is another technique I don’t use that often and am always reminded how much I like it when I do.

The combination of double thickness and the stitch pattern makes for a hot pad that’s already pretty thick, but I also added a bit of old towel to the inside before I closed up the end to make it super thick and extra protective for your surfaces.

I found the engineering challenge of this construction method to be a lot of fun, but you could also just knit it as a tube (casting on twice as many stitches as I did) and sew up the ends by hand when the knitting is done. Either way you’ve got a useful and pretty addition to your kitchen, whether you work it in a solid color, stripes or as a stash busting project will all your cotton odd balls.

You can grab the pattern over at Our Daily Craft, or check it out on Ravelry.

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