Snowy the Bear

Ta-Da - Snowy the Bear.

My very first knitted toy, made for Ben. It should have been a Christmas present but I got snowed under with request for warmers and it never happened. Have to say I felt a bit daunted by the pattern too...

The pattern is called 'Otto' and is available from Ysolda Teague's Store.

It took me about 4 days to finish the bear and Snowy turned out very cute, but I did have a few issues with the pattern. I think the nose as per pattern is too long and it caused me no end of trouble when I embroidered it with the black yarn. In the end I had to take it apart, shorten it and therefore get rid off any resemblance to a well known German dictator....

I am also not happy with the mistakes I found in the pattern regarding the legs and gusset. Unfortunately, despite the promise of pattern support I got no help Ysolda herself, nor from the Ysolda Ravelry group.

On the whole though Snowy is sweet and much loved.


A personal touch was adding the bouclé yarn embroidery around the ears. The yarn is Sirdar Juicy in White (Coconut) for the main body, Cashcotton in black for the nose and eyes and Rowan Astrakhan in cream for the embroidery around the ears. The stuffing is pure lambswool. Very squishy and soft! :)

I loved knitting with the bamboo yarn as it's lovely and silky and so smooth. Perfect for all sorts of projects.

The pattern got my appetite wetted for some toy knitting. I've almost finished a little cat which is based on my own pattern. I quite fancy making a monkey or a different kind of bear though. We'll see... I'll have to add it to the very long list of projects which gets longer by the day.

The emerald green shrug got put aside whilst Ben was nagging me to make his bear... however, that is almost finished too. AND I did some more yarn dying. Once the yarn has been untangled and wound up into balls I will show you the results.