My New Knitting Project: The Woodsy Association!

Remember I blogged about a week ago, saying I'd started a new knitting project? Wanna see what it is I'm making??

Well, last year I totally fell in love with The Woodsy Association knitting patterns from Tiny Owl Knits...

 

... little wristwarmers decorated with "a raucous little band of woodland animals that will gather around you for fighting crime!" Seriously cute stuff.

I didn't fancy making lots of wristwarmers, but instead decided to use them to make a knitted patchwork cushion for my mum who a) loves woodland animals and b) has an assortment of brown and cream coloured cushions in her living room so it'd fit in perfectly with her decor.

Originally this was going to be a surprise project but I have realised that keeping the secret was going to be pretty much impossible! I'm living with my folks at the moment and though I could squeeze in some knitting when my mum's not around or after she's gone to bed, not being able to work on this project while we're sitting watching telly in the evenings was reeeeeally going to slow down my progress. Plus it will be so much more fun being able to show her each finished animal and I work through them, and to share my progress with you guys here on my blog!

So, I told her about it yesterday and now I'm telling you guys :)

I don't have a detailed plan yet for how the cushion is going to look, but the basic plan is to knit squares and decorate them with the animals then fill in the other spaces with plain squares in the other shades of yarn, and just see how the colours end up looking together as I go. These are the shades of yarn I'm using:

I'm knitting each square and then adding the animal design in duplicate stitch (where you sew over the knitted stitches, instead of knitting the design using stranded intarsia). My first attempt at duplicate stitch was a bit of a mess because (like an idiot) I'd not bothered to look up how to do it! After looking online for some tutorials I totally get it now and my second attempt is going very well.

You can see the difference here - the first attempt is on the left, the second on the right:
 

I've got no idea how long it'll take me to get the whole cushion made (I have told my mum that this is a present for her "at some point", could be Christmas or her birthday or maybe even Christmas next year!) but I'm really looking forward to seeing it develop and to stitching all those cute little animal faces!