A Chameleon and Egg

Lizards come from eggs too! This Chameleon is the newest reversible toy in my collection, and is made out of more hand-dyed recycled yarns.

He has the amazing ability of camouflaging himself to the ball of yarn he was knit from!

Even the egg can camouflage itself! (On very select backgrounds anyway).

Suggested Retail: $16.00. Come see it in person at the Bloomington Handmade Market this weekend!

Tropical Fish Egg Toy

Here's a new reversible egg toy! This tropical fish showcases a couple of my hand-dyed recycled yarns, and was a lot of fun to design.

Since fish eggs are transparent, I thought about knitting the egg with fishing line. Deciding that would be difficult and likely to be wonky-shaped, I ended up using a white cotton (recycled) yarn which gives a nice transparent effect. It also keeps the nice soft kid-friendliness of this toy intact.

Swish!

Fish kisses!

Suggested retail: $16.00

A Platypus

Platypodes are amazing animals. They have bills like ducks, webbed feet, beaver tails, lay leathery reptilian eggs, lactate, and can shoot venom from their feet! There are so many weird facts about platypodes that you'll just have to look them up yourself. I've always been fascinated by the crazy creatures, and couldn't wait to knit one for my reversible egg toy collection.

My biologist husband and I had a lot of reading platypodes while I was working on knitting this toy. The weirdest fact we read is that, although they do produce milk, they lack teats with which to dispense milk to their infants. Instead, the mother platypus secrets milk from glands in her skin. That milk pools up and the babies lap up the milk from the mother's skin. Isn't that wild?

Apparently, when European scientists discovered platypodes a British researcher named W.H. Caldwell sent a wire back to Britain reading simply "Monotremes oviparous, ovum meroblastic" In other words, Platypodes lay eggs and those eggs are reptilian in nature. That incredibly nerdy telegram really amused Collin and me. My knitted egg isn't very leathery or reptilian, but it is nice and yellow like platypus eggs!

In case you're curious, the brown and yellow yarns are recycled yarns, unraveled from a lovely rayon-cashmere-wool blend sweater. The black feet and face are knit with handspun naturally black wool.

... And there you have it. One of the strangest creatures God ever created. And it can be yours for just $16.00! Come check it out at the Bloomington Handmade Market on November 6th.

A Phoenix Hen

While taking a break from the species specific birds I've been knitting, I thought I'd knit a fun imaginary bird from the recycled verigated yarns that I've dyed. Therefore, I present to you: A Phoenix Hen. Now, I realize that this doesn't look much like a crazy firey bird, nor like the breed of chicken. Nevertheless, I thought the overall effect looked kind of like what might be the result of a phoenix marrying a chicken. Very cute, if a little odd.

This Phoenix-Hen comes from a robin-blue colored egg.

In this case, the cool blue tones are deceptive. Crack open the egg, and you'll find a firey-red bird!

"Well, my father was a phoenix, and my mother was a hen. But I'm ok with that now."

Suggested Retail: $16.00. This bird will be for sale at the Bloomington Handmade Market on November 6th, come check it out!

Turtle Cousins

Finally, a reversible egg that isn't a bird! Here are my first two turtles reversibles. Aren't they fun?

When I come back to making animals in a few weeks I'm sure I'll be making some more, as well as some other reptiles and amphibians. Plus, I still want to make a platypus.

Suggested Retail: $16.00. The turtle with the brown shell pattern will be available at the Paper Crane in Bloomington on and after October 15th.

American Bluebird

The latest in my series of species-specific bird/egg toys is this beautiful American Bluebird. I think he might be my favorite bird so far. He's got a red breast and a little white underbelly which you can barely see in these pictures.

I really need to take a break from knitting birds, partly because I'm running out of creative ideas for photographing them. (Also because I have so many other cool ideas for other projects that I can't wait to put up here as soon as I get through all my bird orders!)

This egg is in a pastel teal that coordinates beautifully with his outer coat.

Suggested Retail: $16.00. This bluebird will be available for sale in Bloomington at the Paper Crane on and after October 15.

The Ugly Duckling

"He is not handsome, but he is a thoroughly good creature, and he swims as beautifully as any of the others. I think I might venture even to add that I think he will improve as he goes on, or perhaps that he may grow smaller. He was too long in the egg, and so he has not come out with a very good figure."

-Mother Duck, The Ugly Duckling, Hans Christian Anderson

A friend of mine asked if I could make an "Ugly Duckling" because it is her son's favorite story and they would enjoy being able to act it out with a toy cygnet. A "cygnet" is, of course, a baby swan. In this case, however, I think the description "Ugly Duckling" works pretty well. He's very ungainly, but still kind of cute in his ugliness. The egg (above and below) is made from a green-gray-brown heather yarn which looks very much like a swan egg.

The egg blends in with the rocks on the shore line.

Poor lonely little bird.

The Ugly Duckling hid in a clump of grass so that the ducks wouldn't peck him and the hunters wouldn't shoot him.

Then, one day, the ugly duckling saw some birds he'd never seen before. Oh, if only he could look more like them instead of being such an ugly creature.

...Someday...

Finally, he grew into a graceful adult swan. "He thought of how he had been pursued and scorned, and now he heard them all say that he was the most beautiful of all beautiful birds... saying with exultation in his heart, 'I never dreamt of so much happiness when I was the Ugly Duckling!'"

-H.C.A.

Suggested Retail: $16.00

A Baby Cardinal

Check out my third bird-egg toy (again, from Susan B. Anderson's fantastic design), my second more realistic species version. Photographing this baby cardinal was very fun, since my garden is in full bloom and I was able to catch him pecking at my sunflowers.

Here he is again, eyeing the plants from the front porch railing.

Cardinals have brown and white speckled eggs, so I chose this tan flecked yarn for the egg. I like having a variety of colors and textures so that the eggs don't all look like they came from a chicken.

There's a crack in the egg. And look - a beak is poking out!

Streeeeeeeetch!

He's a very tame bird. He'll eat sunflower seeds right out of your hand.

He also loves to perch high up on a garden trellis and survey his domain below.

Suggested retail: $16.00

A hatching baby robin

This is my second egg-to-bird toy from Susan B. Anderson's book, Itty-Bitty Toys, and my first species-specific model. I so wanted to make a robin, since I've loved hosting quite a number of robins in our earthworm-filled garden.

As always, the charm of this little toy is that you can turn it inside out and let it hatch out of the egg!

Here we go... starting with a little blue robin egg.

Oh! There's a little head poking through.

You can do it, little bird!

Getting ready to take flight...

He did it! Fly away and get thee a wife, Mr. Robin! Then we can start over with the egg!

Suggested retail: $16.00

Baby Bluebird

Here's a really fun knitted toy that I made from one of Susan B. Anderson's patterns. It's a little egg that turns inside out and "hatches" a baby bluebird!

Top of the egg

Bottom of the egg with the reversible edge

... Which flips around and turns into a bluebird!

Generally I'm not a big fan of knitted toys, as ever kid I know has lots of stuffed animals. This toy is way cooler than average, though, because it actually does something. Plus, it's a wonderful size for baby and toddler hands to hold.

Now that I've made a prototype bird according to Mrs. Anderson's pattern, I'd love to make a whole set of birds. I can envision cardinals, robins, gold finches, even parrots! The eggs could be white, speckled, natural colors or even Easter eggs! And while we're at it, the animals that hatch wouldn't necessarily have to be birds - I saw someone online who made a platypus (!) and I could easily make a turtle, lizard or fish.

Suggested Retail: Because this bird is simple and not species-specific, the price is lower than the more complex birds at $14.00.