Knit a Giant Peep-Style Easter Bunny

I recently posted about a couple of my older Easter knitting patterns, and I was thinking out loud how it would be fun to make a giant Peep-style bunny out of blanket yarn, following the trend of giant amigurumi.

I happened to have most of a ball of Bernat Blanket yarn left over from another project, so I decided to give it a go.

The result is this Peep bunny knitting pattern that I shared over on Our Daily Craft.

It’s actually a pretty quick and easy project, worked in one piece from the bottom up. You increase to form the base, then do a round of purl stitches to mark the edge of the base. The body is worked straight in stockinette stitch as long as you want, with a little shaping for the head. Then each ear is worked in turn from some of the stitches used on the head. If you need to “seam” anything, it’s that tiny space between the ears.

My absolute favorite part, though, is that I wanted this bunny to stand up on its own, so I wanted to stuff it with things heavier than standard stuffing (though I did use regular stuffing in the ears). So I gathered all this random stuff (so much random stuff) like the tops of old T0shirts I’d used to make yarn, the edges of old cloth napkins I had cut off so I could reuse the rest of the fabric, yarn ends and fabric scraps and just so much stuff.

It was really quite satisfying. Bunny is firm but still huggable, and weighs a whopping 3.5 pounds. It also stands 25 inches tall and is nearly 30 inches around the belly. This would be so fun to make for a little one for Easter, or just to have hanging around your living room during the spring.

When I discovered Kate Atherley’s book Circular Knitting for Beginners and Beyond, I wasn’t sure there was enough to say about circular knitting to fill a book. It’s a pretty short book (144 pages) and includes 10 patterns to practice working in the round on small projects, and it provides a decent introduction to the various ways of working in the round.

The book covers using double pointed knitting needles, flexible double points and circular knitting needles with cables. It talks about working using the full circumference of a circular needle and various ways to work smaller circumference projects, such as using DPNs, magic loop and knitting with two circular knitting needles.

In addition there’s a discussion of preventing problems like twists and ladders, swatching in the round without actually swatching in the round, grafting, blocking and weaving in ends.

More specialized techniques likes knitting from the center out, stranded colorwork, helical knitting and jogless stripes are also explored, as well as working pieces like socks or mitts two at a time.

There’s also some information about seamless sweaters, including the different sweater designs that can be worked seamlessly (and why you might want seams in your sweaters) and how they are worked from the top down or the bottom up.

There are 10 patterns in the book, including a basic stockinette stitch cowl and one with a deliberate twist, wrist warmers, mitts and a pair of colorwork mittens, a hat worked in a solid color or in helical stripes, toe up and top down socks and a beret. It would have been nice to have a basic sweater pattern, too, since the book does talk about working larger garments with circular needles, but it’s still a nice collection of basic patterns worked in the round.

If you’re already comfortable working in the round in different ways, I’m not sure there’s much for you to learn in this book, but it is a good reference for people learning circular knitting or who maybe haven’t tried all the techniques yet or need skill building projects to try.

About the book: 144 pages, paperback, 10 patterns. Published 2026 by David & Charles. Suggested retail price $24.99.

Have you read?