Gemma 
Welcome to Day 9 of Blogmas At Home 2024! 🎄🎅🏻✨
I make a lot of crocheted soft toys, but I don't have quite as much experience making knitted toys. I'm more confident at crochet in general (even though I started out with knitting and actually made some Alan Dart/Jean Greenhowe soft toys before I even learned how to crochet!), so toys knitted on DPNs have always felt a little out of my comfort zone. However, I saw the CUTEST Christmas Bear knitting pattern on Ravelry (this one, by Ekaterina Popova) and decided it was high time to face my fears.
In this post, as always with my 'Making a...' series, I'll be chatting about my experience making this pattern, as well as detailing any changes/adaptations I made. If you want to make your own Christmas Bear, you can purchase the pattern from the designer here!
Table of Contents
Pattern Variations
The pattern contains instructions for making two different styles of bear: a polar bear (i.e. all white) and a brown bear (i.e. with a different colour muzzle), though you can obviously use whatever colours you want! I opted to make a polar bear, just to really drive home the whole ‘Christmas Bear’ vibe (and, as an added bonus, it meant I only had to buy one colour of yarn…).
Another customisable element of the pattern is the outfit you make for your bear. Instructions are given for both a romper (with individual leg holes) and a dress, though the design of both is exactly the same (as with the bear, colours can be changed). I opted to make the dress, using the same green/brown colour scheme as the outfit on the main pattern photo, because I thought it was really cute and very Christmassy!
Finally, the pattern comes with two separate sets of instructions: one for knitting the bear flat (on straight needles) and one for knitting the bear in the round (on DPNs). I actually didn’t realise this at first, so I could have just knitted this little bear flat, but I’d already committed to facing my fear, so I stuck with my plan to knit it in the round.
Materials
Yarn
For this project, I used the following yarns:
- Drops Lima Uni Color, in the shade Off White (0100).
I used this yarn for all of the bear’s body pieces. I bought 1x50g ball (despite the pattern calling for 55g…) and I had just enough to make the whole toy (yarn chicken success!).
- Rowan Felted Tweed, in the shades Pine (158), Camel (157) and Ginger (154).
I used this yarn for the bear’s dress: Pine for the bodice/sleeves, Camel for the skirt and Ginger for the reindeer’s nose.
- Oddments of fingering weight yarn, in Black and Brown.
I used the black yarn for embroidering on the bear’s face and the reindeer’s eyes (the pattern suggests using beads for this, but, since I already had the yarn to hand, I just used that!). I used the brown yarn to crochet the little reindeer antlers.
Notions
I used the following needles/hooks:
- 5x 2.75mm DPNs
Used for the bear’s body pieces.
- 2.75mm circular needles
Used for the bear’s dress.
- 2mm crochet hook
Used for crocheting the reindeer’s antlers.
- Darning needle
For sewing up.
- Fine sewing needle
For embroidering/attaching buttons.
I also used the following extra materials:
- Lockable stitch markers
Essential for toy-making!
- Toy stuffing
I like to stuff knitted soft toys quite firmly, because I think it gives them the most professional look, so I always use quite a bit of toy stuffing (though it is possible that I overstuffed this particular bear— she’s definitely on the tubby side).
- Two 20mm coconut shell buttons
For attaching the legs to the body.
- Two 11mm wooden heart buttons
For the dress closure.
Adaptations
While I didn’t make any changes during the actual knitting process (your girl is not confident enough for that… yet), I did make a few adjustments when it came to sewing the bear together/embroidering on all the details:
- Head
I sewed the head on to the body using quite a wide circumference on the body, to make sure the neck was nice and sturdy (no lolling heads here!). I went around the head once and it was still quite flimsy and floppy, so I went round again, a little further out, and it was much more secure.
- Nose
After using the cast on thread for the head to sew the nose shut (as instructed), I didn’t cut it off, so I could use it to do the nose shaping later on. The pattern suggests using embroidery thread for this stage, but I felt lazy and found the matching thread worked just as well.
I also used the Camel shade of the Rowan Felted Tweed (the same one I used for the dress) to embroider the nose, instead of embroidery thread. When stitching the nose, I started in the centre, rather than on one side, to ensure the nose was centred and symmetrical.
- Eyes
I did not use French knots for the bear’s eyes as instructed— I really struggled with them and definitely couldn’t get anything that resembled the cute eyes from the pattern! Instead, I used the black fingering weight yarn and my 2mm crochet hook to make a magic ring (6 dc— as always, British crochet terminology) and stitched that on. Having said that though, I’ve actually been working on my French knots since this and I think I’m starting to get the hang of them now? Nevertheless, the magic ring-style eyes worked really well, so I’m still happy with them!
- Arms
I didn’t gather up the cast on edge at the top of the arm as instructed, but instead sewed the stitches together so that I had a flat edge to sew onto the bear. This meant that I could kind of tuck the arms in between the body and the head, which I felt gave a better, cleaner finish. The arms need to be quite high up on the body, so I found this helped them to sit more neatly.
I realised that it was super important that the arms lined up with the dress, so I actually put the arms ‘into’ the dress, then put the dress on the bear to see where they needed to sit before stitching them on (otherwise the dress wouldn’t fit right!). I ended up sewing the shoulder seams right into the crevice between the body and the head.
- Legs
The buttons I was using to attach the legs had four holes (as opposed to two), so I had to do some more stitches than instructed to attach the legs. I went through the first leg (and one button), went back in through another hole on the button, then pushed the needle right through to the other side, through the other leg (and other button), then repeated the process until all of the button holes had been stitched through. This makes the legs move together, which I think (?) is what the pattern suggests.
- Dress
I used heart-shaped buttons for the dress, because I thought they were cute. I did make my button holes 5 chains long (instead of 6), because my crochet hook was slightly larger than the one suggested in the pattern, but I think I could have gone down to 4 chains for a closer fit to my buttons.
Final thoughts
Phew… my first, proper, DPN-knitted toy and I think it turned out super well! I’m actually so happy with it— there’s always that worry when you make a handmade toy that it won’t turn out as cute and perfect as it looks in the pattern, but I think this one is pretty close! I admit, knitting on DPNs is a bit of a trial, but it wasn’t as completely impossible as I thought it would be and it does give a really lovely, polished look.
I thought the pattern for this bear was super clear and detailed— I really enjoyed making it. I would have loved a little bit more guidance on specific placements for each of the body parts, just to make sewing up the bear that little bit easier, but I’m really happy with how my bear turned out, which, to me, is a sign of a good pattern.
I was a little sceptical about the button-leg-joint situation, just because it was kind of giving Coraline vibes which freaked me out a little bit, but I actually really love that feature. It makes the bear much more agile and manoeuvrable, so it can be positioned easily. I also think it actually looks quite cute in real life (but the dress covers the buttons anyway, so you can always just pretend the buttons aren’t there!).
Speaking of the dress… it is quite short! I feel like my little Christmas Bear is a bit exposed… If I were to make the dress again, I definitely add a few more rows (maybe 3-5?), just to give my bear a little more modesty. This dress was actually my very first time knitting Raglan lines, which means this project is kind of, almost, a Project Knitwear instalment? In mini, bear form? I learned about M1T and M1A, but it did take me quite a bit of getting used to and, honestly, I don’t think I could remember how to do it now, so I might need a little bit more practice on that one!
On the topic of what I’d do differently next time, if you’re making a polar bear, I’d also recommend placing a stitch marker on Round 9 of the head when the pattern says to change from Yarn B to Yarn A. Because there isn’t the same colour distinction with the polar bear as with the regular bear, I found it really hard to figure out where the nose was after I stuffed the head!
Overall, I am SO happy with how this Christmas Bear turned out! I think it’s such a cute, neat pattern and I’m really proud of my bear. I’d love to make more bears (I saw the cutest ‘Autumn Bear‘ variation!), but I think I’d need to gear myself up a little bit before going in for Round 2— I may have faced my DPN fear, but I don’t think I’ve quite conquered it yet!
If you're interested...
You can find the Christmas Bear pattern by Ekaterina Popova here.
You can find my Christmas Bear project page on Ravelry here.
Gemma
xxx
