Toymakers' Manifesto

I was recently interviewed by math4knitters for her podcast. One question Lara asked me was about my fascination with knitted toys. Why do two middle-aged people like making small knitted toys? We'll admit to not giving them all of them away. OK, maybe not even that many. Some are too delicate for children; they are more like little sculptures; some we just can't part with.
  So here is my Toymakers Manifesto:  knitting silly toys doesn't need an excuse any more than any other crafty pursuit does. Cuteness is its own reward.
  In celebration of this stand tough approach, we accept the newly completed strongman into Le Cirque de Souris.

 He was knit and assembled by Mr. Rududu. I embroidered the face and provided a little knitting advice along the way. He joins his colleagues the bee trainer, the lady bird trainer, the plate spinner, the juggling clowns and the ring master. There are several more characters we plan to knit, including the escape artist and the trapeze artists.

The patterns were created by Alan Dart. These mice are about the size of real mice so the knitting is quick. However, parts are numerous and are knit flat so a mouse requires lots of sewing up; it's a bit fiddly and time consuming. Mr. Rududu has installed armatures so that the mice can be posed without falling over.

 We knit the mice bodies with Shetland 2 ply jumper weight yarn; the clothing and accessories are in Kauni yarn from the rainbow sequence. It's hardly a stashbusting project but you can use up very small amounts of yarn you might have on hand. I guess every little bit helps when it comes to stashbusting.

   As for the rest of the interview, some of is about what rududu means, about my nether garment and why I knit it, and a large part is very basic hints about knitting in color for someone who has never tried it.  The interview can be found here.