I am knitting my little fingers to the bone to get the YOTD up, but sometimes you just cannot knit quick enough. I am working on it, I promise, with a beautiful silk and bamboo yarn which I am loving, but it will take time. Perfection takes time. So for these next few YOTD I am going to focus on some of my toy yarns that I love to work with, and find really easily in most yarn shops, and is really quite cheap. I don't mind spending money on more expensive yarns but for toys, the cheap acrylic is so perfect, and available in every single colour under the sun. But keep reading even if you don't knit toys. I use it for other things too.
The first of these yarns is Hayfield Bonus. I am using Deramores again as a yarn shop, but they really do show a great amount of the colours, in good swatches, so you can really see what colours you can get. They are also a good price. Bonus comes in 100g balls, which really is plenty when you talk about toys, as you get 280m on there. It knits up on 4mm needles for the tension, but normally when you knit toys, you go down a few sizes of needles to get a thick tension so the stuffing doesn't show through. Normally this yarn is about £2 a ball, but at Deramores currently they are £1.69 a ball.
Here are just a few of the toys that I have knit with a variety of yarns, including Hayfield Bonus. It is a great yarn to work with, easy to knit with and the stitch definition is very good. You get a really nice finish with it. It is also washable, but of course with toys, you would probably only want to make it surface washable, but with these yarns, you know it is going to be safe. It also doesn't fluff so it is pretty safe for little ones.
Not everyone knits toys. I know that. And I have used this yarn for other projects too and they have been really successful. I like to use the cheaper acrylic for the projects that I want to wash a lot, or is going to be used a lot. For example, this tea cosy and teapot stand. This is a stranded tea cosy and a mitred pot stand that I made for a present for my granny, who actually won't use it, despite the fact it is knit in washable acrylic. She uses it on display in the kitchen, over her display teapot.
Toy knitting does really need cheaper yarn. Don't be a yarn snob. You don't need the expensive cottons and silks for these. The cheap acrylic is perfect, mostly because on some yarn you will only need a very small amount. You can buy smaller 25g balls in some brands and I will be showing these soon, along with a specific post about skin tones, as that can be a difficult thing to find.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, we are off tomorrow to celebrate my Sister In Law's birthday with family, and I apparently need to go make a pineapple upside down cake for the Blattman. And a Swiss Roll. Knitting might be on the back burner for a little more!!!
