Knitting

Free Patterns, Tutorials and Project Ideas

Knit an Adorable Tiny Shrew

by

I’m going to admit up front here that all this time I thought a shrew was a bird. It’s actually a mole-like mammal that wort of looks like a mouse, but it isn’t a rodent. They live most places in the world (other than New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand and South America, thanks, Wikipedia!) and, at 385 known species they are the fourth-most species-diverse mammal family. 

They’re also really cute. 

Claire Garland reports that she had a shrew visiting her garden throughout the summer, and while it was too quick to photograph, it could be immortalized in knitting. 

The real one probably didn’t have a tiny striped sweater, but I’ll allow it. 

Claire says the design is “a little fiddly” as its worked in several tiny pieces (which are joined as you go) on the smallest knitting needles she could find (US 00, or 1.75 mm). The completed creature only stands about 3 inches/8 cm tall. 

The good news is you might have stash yarn you can use to make this little one, as it only takes about 50 yards total. 

She used tiny glue-in eyes, but you can embroider eyes instead (with French knots or just a little stitch). The sweater pattern is included in the pattern for the shrew. 

The pattern is available for free on Ravelry but you really need to check out the Instagram Reel she shared when the pattern was released, because it’s super cute and tells a bit more of the story of the shrew in the garden.

Claire’s patterns are so sweet and this would be a great addition to or start of a collection of tiny woodland creatures to knit and create a little world for. 

In the meantime, does anyone know what kind of bird I was thinking of when I was sure a shrew was a bird? That’s going to keep me confused for a while. 

[Photo: Claire Garland]

Have you read?

A Shawlette with a Ton of Design Options

There’s a lot to like about the Eloise Bandana from Katryn Seeburger. This cute little colorwork triangle can be worked as a bandana or kerchief size or a bigger shawlette. 

It’s worked in two colors of fingering weight yarn so you can use whatever yarn you have in your stash and just make it as big as you can (since it is worked from the bottom up). 

You can see the two sizes from the photo, and also two colorwork options: strawberries and lily of the valley. 

But that’s not all the choices you have. In fact, there are 34 different charts you can choose from to knit onto your project. Some of the options include happy faces, a lobster, a pumpkin, a snail and a butterfly. There are cherries, peaches, tomatoes and radishes.

There’s even a blank square you can use to draw your own little design if you want to use something else. Or keep it blank and make it a plain checkerboard design. 

And while both of these shawls use the same icons throughout, you could also use different designs throughout if you want. Say a fall version with a bat, pumpkin, leaf and acorn, or a summer beach theme with sailboat, fish, lobster and a bird? I keep suggesting four different icons because the larger size has four rows of squares, but the smaller has three, so you could do stripes of the same icon or alternate a couple of different ones, whatever you like. 

Look through the finished projects on the Ravelry project page to see lots of different options, from rows to individual icons. There are also some projects that are smaller than the suggested size to make a smaller bandana. You could also keep going a make a bigger shawl working increases in the same way as you have been going. 

Check out all the details and grab a copy of the pattern on Ravelry. 

[Photo: Katryn Seeburger]