Does your crafting mojo wane and wax like the phases of the moon? Mine does. I have a fairly narrow set of interests but it’s up to the Gods of Craft when I work on one of them.
After my knitting took a back seat for a few weeks, I started feeling the need to get the needles and yarn out and create something cute and tiny. I didn’t feel ready to tackle a bit knitting project, my brain was asking for a quick reward. Enter a frog and a toad!
If you are familiar with India Rose Crawford on Instagram, you’ll know her cute frogs poised in adorable miniature cosy scenes. If you’ve never heard of her, I highly encourage you to have a look, her attention to detail is fantastic.
I bought a knitting kit featuring India Rose’s frog pattern (jumper included) and when the time was right I begun working on it. My first attempt didn’t quite go to plan, as I mistakenly placed the eyes on his bottom… poor thing ended up looking much more like an axolotl than a frog.
The knitting gods were mocking me but I persisted! A couple of days later I had a new cute amphibian with a wired armature.
Knitting an i-cord around wire isn’t easy, let me tell you. It’s fiddly work but the end result is super worth it. And yes, the background for the photo above is my pyjama bottoms – evening knitting works best in cosy loungewear.
The gods played tricks on me once again as I didn’t have enough yarn to finish the mini jumper, so I frogged it (if you’re not familiar, “frogging” refers to when you remove a project from the needles and undo the stitches, the resulting “rip-it” motion being similar to the word “ribbit.” Fitting for this post, no?) After adding some blue stripes this dapper gentleman was ready to stay cosy.
I seem to enjoy making things in pairs, as soon as I was done with the frog I decided it needed a friend and Toad was born. I even bought a tiny dungarees pattern for added whimsy. The front pocket was my own creation.
And there you have it, two quick dopamine-inducing knitting projects that eventually led me to a human-sized jumper a few days later. I’ll have to frog that project too, but that’s a subject for another day.
And, finally, here is an image of what India Rose Crawford does with her knitted frogs. Amazing, isn’t it?
Maybe I’ve inspired you to knit something tiny. If you do, let me know in the comments section. Thanks for reading.