Muir Sally - Knit Your Own Pet

For the pets:Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, the bantam hensCaspar, the bearded dragonHajikucheek, the mynah birdStarlight, the Shetland ponySticky, the stick insectHammy, Peace, Love, Justice, Beauty, the hamstersHengist and Horsa, the gerbilsAudrey, Max, Mika and Lulu, the ratsGeoffrey, Sally, Abigail and Gabriel, the goldfish

There are very many reasons why you might want to knit yourself a pet: maybe you arent allowed that ferret that youve always craved; your goldfish has moved on to the Great Goldfish Bowl in the Sky; there isnt any room for a pony in your house; your cat might take too much interest in a real mouse. The knitted pet avoids many of the problems of the real pet, giving you lovely woolly companionship with none of the drawbacks. The knitted pet is perfectly house-trained, never nips, will not escape and will never die, and you will also have the satisfaction of knowing that you made it yourself. Knit Your Own Pet is a book for the beginner knitter. We have made our patterns simple so that they can be easily achieved. Some of our pets are quicker to knit and smaller than others and we have given each a rosette rating, from one to three, to help you decide where to start.

It would be a good idea if you are a very new knitter to begin with a one-rosette pet, something very simple like the Mouse or Goldfish, which are small and quick to make and will give you a great sense of achievement. You can then move on to tackle something a little harder like the Cornsnake or Guinea Pig, which are also one-rosette pets and so still easy, but will take a little longer. Then you can move onto the Simple Cat and Dog, which are larger and are two-rosette pets. Finally, when you have practised on all those, you can make the Shetland Pony and Ferret, which are the most complicated in the book and both three-rosette, but are still not very difficult. You can change yarns to make your pets in different colours to ours, and if you use thicker yarn and bigger needles, youll get a bigger pet. Bear in mind that if you want to give a pet to a small child, its best not to give those that have to have pipecleaners, like the Canary: you can get by without using pipecleaners in most of the animals if you make sure to stuff the legs firmly.

We hope that youll enjoy making the pets as much as we did. Joanna and Sally

If you are a total beginner knitter, then we are quite envious, as a lot of pleasure awaits you as you learn to knit. You might find holding the needles and yarn a bit awkward at first, but practise just knitting rows with some spare yarn before you start on the simplest project in the book (we suggest the ), and youll soon get the hang of it. To help you get started the basic knitting techniques are shown on the following pages; there are also lots of good video tutorials on the Web if youd like to see knitting in action. We have given each of our pets a rosette rating, from one to three, to help you decide where to start.

	Easy pets, a good place to start
	Larger pets, more of a challenge
	The most complicated pets

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