Stash Busting with Knitted Toys

I don’t knit a lot of toys, and I don’t know why that is, because I always enjoy doing it and they’re so sweet and fun to look at and play with.

But dolls and other toys are a great way to use up bits of stash because a teddy bear is still adorable in stripes, or you can make different parts of a toy in different colors to use up some of your little bits.

Looking for more Knitting patterns for Teddy Bears? Check it out here.

Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Dolls: I love these little Knubblechen dolls from Ravelry user pzi888. They’re worked in sock yarn, and there is an English translation. Manne has little cork dolls (there’s a translation for this simple pattern, too), while Tonya Gunn has knit gnomes in a smaller version than those first ones.

Animal toys: I love Mary MCK’s Syndey the Stash-Busting Snake, but there’s also Socktopus by Laura Edwards, Susan B. Anderson’s adorable Elefante, Sheldon the turtle by Ruth Homrighaus, Rebecca Danger’s Bunny Nuggets, the Owls Two Ways by Ana Clerc (that’s knit or crochet) and Bob, from Mochimochi Land, which may not be an animal so much as, well, I don’t really know (he’s inspired by the plastic floaty thing in the toliet. Eww.).

Balls and other toys: Check out Celestine from Berroco (my mom made my daughter one of these once!), the Braided Ball by Marleen Hartog and Doddy by Carol Feller, which is a ball made out of pentagons.

That should get you going! If you have any favorite toy patterns, I hope you’ll share!

Next Pattern:

I can’t resist a pattern that’s both useful and a little silly, and that’s exactly how I feel about the Rybka pouch pattern from the delightfully named Rat and Sea Witch.

I know you’re going to ask, because I did, too. Rybka means little fish in Polish. (And because you’re also probably going to ask, Rat and Sea Witch comes from people’s attempts to say the designer’s name, Ratasiewicz, which if you say it fast kind of sounds like rat and sea witch.)

It’s easy to make a little fish bag in different sizes to suit your needs. The pattern has specific instructions for an Airpods Pro case and a pencil case, but you could change the length easily to hold more stuff, and change the size in general by working with a different weight of yarn.

The pattern calls for sock yarn and mohair held together to make a fingering weight gauge, but you could try it with heavier yarn and see what size bag you end up with.

Whatever size you make it, this looks like a fun project for holding trinkets or everyday items. The mouth of the fish is the mouth of the bag, and it closes with a drawstring that is also the strap. I wonder, too, if you could make one of these with a small clasp frame that could be the fish’s mouth and then you could just work I cord straps that would attach to the sides of the fish.

I could also see stripes, or fish of different colors to use up your yarn leftovers. How about a sunglasses case with a little loop to attach to your bag? Once you start thinking about all the ways you could use a fish-shaped bag in your life, I think you’ll see that you probably need more than one.

If you make one of these I would love to know how it went!

You can grab a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Rat and Sea Witch]

Next Pattern:

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