Every so often, you see a pattern and think “WHY HAVEN’T I SEEN THIS BEFORE?!” And so it was when I spotted the Knitwits (who come from 1974 - where else?!) on Ebay a couple of years ago. After a frenzied bidding war (well, perhaps one other bid…), I nabbed the pattern for £9.70 and immediately set to work on the hedgehog (photo seven).

Sadly, I hadn’t reckoned on how basic the instructions would be. Up until that point, I’d only tackled contemporary patterns, which tend to take you through the knitting and construction process in a lot more detail. This pattern seems to have been written with a word count in mind. As an example, the Knitwits are made up of six animals (hedgehog, badger, fox, mole, mouse and rabbit - photo six) but none of the patterns are written up in their entirety. Instead, you get referred to one pattern for the arms and another for the legs and then, within the arm pattern, you get referred to another animal for certain sections. It was also frustrating that only half the hedgehog’s head is provided - you have to reverse all the shaping to make the other side whilst remembering to do loop stitch AND swap colours. And, because the double knit version was supposed to come out at around 19 inches tall, I decided to scale down with 4-ply. ARGGGH!

I started this project during the London 2012 Olympics but eventually abandoned it for something less mind-boggling. Then, earlier this year, after a period of making stuff for other people, I decided to make something that I really, really wanted (and who doesn’t want a hedgehog in an Abba-esque jumpsuit?!) so I picked up where I’d left off. And I’m so glad I did because I love Benny Hedgehogson now he’s complete. In fact, I think he might be one of the best things I’ve ever done. If I’d been following the pattern from start to finish, I would’ve snipped the loop stitch and trimmed the ‘spines’ (see photo seven) but I couldn’t bring myself to do it when they’d taken so long. But I think I prefer the loop stitch to the trimmed version anyway. And I love his sweet little smile and camp-as-Christmas jumpsuit.

In the future, I plan to make the rest of the Knitwits, hopeful that the process might be a bit easier now I’ve done it once (and I won’t have the loop stitch to contend with on most of the other animals). I might do a couple of easier projects first though!