Knitting

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Book Review: Quick Knit Baby Toys

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Babies like the simple things, including when it comes to toys. While it’s lots of fun to knit elaborate projects for babies (and others!), it’s also totally fine to knit simple things. Baby might just end up liking the more basic toys more because they’re not so precious they can’t be played with. 

Designer Juliette Michelet has designed 20 beginner-friendly doll projects for babies she shares in her book Quick Knit Baby Toys: 20 Beginner-Friendly Patterns for Knitted Baby Comforters. 

The patterns all call for the same materials: fingering weight yarn for knitting the bodies, plus lace weight for embroidery; size 0 US/2 mm knitting needles in straight and circular configurations; thread for embroidering; scissors and a tapestry needle. 

The book covers the basics of knitting and embroidery that are needed to finish the projects, but it’s all pretty basic and the bodies of the dolls are worked flat in rectangles with minimal shaping (ears are worked in the round). There’s more to explain for finishing than there is for knitting, as how you sew up the pieces makes them look like little dolls. 

The creations are as follows:

  • little man with blue hat 
  • apple baby
  • mum with an embroidered skirt
  • little man with a bird sweater
  • sailor
  • sweetheart
  • explorer
  • bear in a ruff
  • bear with hearts
  • deer
  • bird
  • cat
  • rabbit
  • mouse
  • sheep
  • lion
  • elf
  • fox 
  • king
  • witch

The patterns all have fun details such as gold embroidery and a crown on the king, or a little hat with a pompom on top for the bird. The photography is whimsical, showing the characters in different scenes that could inspire creative play if your older kiddos look at the pictures. 

The back of the book includes charts and instructions for embroidery so you can make your dolls look just like the ones in the book or you can go your own way to make different designs on sweaters and skirts, for example. These projects would be great little stash busters, and you can always make them bigger by using heavier yarn if you like. (The patterns don’t say how big these are.) 

These dolls would be a lot of fun to knit and are pretty quick projects so you can make a basket full for a little one in your life. 

About the book: 80 pages, paperback, 20 patterns. Published 2024 by David & Charles. Suggested retail price $17.99.

 

Have you read?

Learn a Flower Bobble Technique to Knit a Fun Shawl

Generally I like knitting patterns where I feel like you can use whatever yarn you have (because my stash is big enough and I want to use it, thanks) and make a successful project. This is one of those times when a special yarn makes the process that much easier. 

The Floral Bouquet Shawl from Xandy Peters uses a specific extended color pooling yarn from Feisty Fibers, which allows you to place the bobble flowers with increasing frequency as you knit the project. 

It starts with a solid color yarn, then the two color yarn is added in, and you make a bobble whenever you encounter the color pops. This would be hard to replicate with other yarn that doesn’t have the extended color pooling built in.

The background of the shawl is ribbed, making the project reversible. 

The shawl uses fingering/sock yarn and comes out to be an asymmetrical triangle that’s 54 inches/137 cm long and 36 inches/ 90 cm deep and 60 inches/150 cm across the top edge. 

Xandy says the pattern is for intermediate to advanced knitters. Knowing how to work traditional bobbles would probably help, but there’s a great video tutorial for how to work the floral bobbles so you can practice on other yarn or even incorporate the bobbles into other projects. 

The bobbles are five-petaled flowers but they also kind of look like starfish to me, which could be fun on a child’s cardigan or other pattern. They’d also be fun on the leg of a sock or around the brim of a hat for extra whimsy. 

The pattern includes photo and video tutorials, and written and charted instructions. It also includes tips on what to look for if you choose to use different yarn for the project, and instructions on how to dye your own yarn to use in the project. 

If you want to give it a try, you can find the pattern on Ravelry. 

[Photo: Xandy Peters]