I saw on Reddit someone who had used a pattern to make a toy, which is how I was introduced to Zenknit by Designer Svetlana Golova. I was immediately drawn in and bought a 3-pack bundle (because I’m such a sucker for bundles!): the polar book, robot shape sorter, and safari activity cube.
Yarn Selection
Still being new to this world, I had a heck of a time choosing my yarns! First, material: I know acrylic yarn is used for a lot of baby items due to its durability, lack of shrinking, and ease of cleaning, but I am trying to stick with natural fabrics, so I deviated from the standard recommendation here. Second, weight: I ended up going with a fingering weight yarn. I also needed a line that offered a variety of colors, given the colorful-ness of the pattern bundle I bought. In the end, I ended up going with the Drops Flora line, which is a 65% wool / 35% alpaca mix.
How long did it take?
I had planned to make this for a baby shower that was 4 months away, but I didn’t realize how optimistic that was 😅 in between my day job and other life happenings, all in all, start to finish was 9 months.
Size
Mine ended up being 13 cm x 13 cm x 5-6 cm, but it depends on your yarn and tension of course. Here’s the book with a stuffy for reference:
What I learned
Tension
Building on what I learned doing a Woobles kit (Woobles review here), I continued to learn even more with this project. Like about tension. Not in the “this is new information about tension that I never knew prior to this” way, but in the “repetition helps create consistency” way.
You can see my progress if you look at the first and last page, which are the first two pages you make — they are noticeably smaller than the inside pages. I stopped holding the yarn so tight which made the progress smoother and faster. Or, was it the other way around, where I got more accustomed to the motions and my smoother and faster movements resulted in a looser tension that I was more comfortable with? 🤔
Svetlana Golova notes that for this project, a tighter tension is preferred (even suggesting using a smaller hook than recommended by the manufacturer). Being new to crochet, I feel like I wafted between a looser tension and going tight in an exploration of my personal style. And no, I did not swatch first, even though there are measurements in the pattern 🙃; I just figured I would be fine with whatever size I ended up with and just went for it.
Yarn-Over vs. Yarn-Under
Svetlana Golova also references yarn under and yarn over methodology. I think I also did a mix of both here! These learnings are something to carry over into the amigurumi world as the “yarn under” method is popular there.
Added Fun
You also have an opportunity to put something inside the animals to enhance the interaction, so I experimented with a few different things. At different times I used packing paper for a crinkle, stuffing for a soft plush feel, and nothing at all
While this item took longer than I wanted to complete, I still like it a lot! So should I do the activity cube or the robot next?
