My Mum & Gran were both avid knitting ladies & taught my brothers & I how to knit when we were quite young.

They both knitted socks for the war effort & then cardigans, jackets & sweaters for all the family.

When my brothers & I started to have babies our Mum made tons of matinee jackets, shawls etc & as our family grew & grew her knitting needles were almost on fire!

I used to love making jumpers & socks with toes, then I found a pattern for toys by Jean Greenhowe & I became addicted to knitting toys - but much more!

Her patterns are easily available - some are thin booklets, others are thicker - I usaully pay around £3.50 but, if you are lucky you may find some on ebay.

Over the years I've knitted toys for my daughters, their friends & for charity sales.
I've made Santa & Mrs Clause, firemen, policemen,little teddies, scarecrows, clowns & a ballerina.

I've knitted mini penguins, christmas stockings,easter chicks, sandwiches, hotdogs, burgers, plates, toothpaste,ice-cream sundaes & liquorice allsorts etc.

Am I crazy? ask my psycholgy students about the knitted Christmas puddings I made for them one year - who says lecturers have to be boring?!

There's no fancy wool required - just plain double knitting which can often be bought in charity shops for a song.

Her patterns are very clearly written & explained & the pictures are fantastic. If you can cast on & off, knit, purl, increase & decrease you can do these lovely projects.

Jean Greenhowe designed her first doll in 1980 & her patterns sell in many different countries - when I'm knitting away I smile when I think of the many different men & women making the same thing as me. Even though the pattern is the same, the characters somehow all look slightly different with a little of their knitters' character?

The Royal Institute for the Blind even translated patterns into braille for knitters with impaired vision - how great is that?

Many of Jean's booklets are themed & have wonderful illustrations - eg there is one which features a teddy bears' picnic & comprises teddies with their plates of sandwiches,hot dogs & burgers - all knitted. I made this for my daughters' primary school as teddy bears picnics were on the national curriculum for early years. The teachers as well as the little ones were thrilled to bits & it's still there 15 years later & still played with.

My favourite booklets contain the Christmas dolls, puds, penguins, stockings etc - love Christmas & love knitting.

So, if you like to knit why not have a go?

summary
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- easy to follow patterns.
- make lovely inexpensive presents.
- cheap hobby - just wool, needles, stuffing & bodkin.
- some of the projects are small & simple to do so you get to see the finished item befor you get bored.
- you'll impress people & they won't forget you!