Baby William and His Baby Bobbi Bear

Here is the photo as promised of my finished Baby Bobbi Bear ... as you can see it is almost as big as William himself is ... although that will change very soon!

It was universally acclaimed as being a feat near to rocket science and also as an adorable bear.

I have four friends who all are having babies in the near future and foresee that I will be knitting bears in my spare time for the next month or two. I will say that it went quickly, being knitted in my spare time within the last two weeks. Although I did have a little problem coming up to the deadline and wound up spending a fair part of Sunday devoted to finishing up this little guy ... I do hate knitting to a deadline!

A few comments:

• The pattern says it is for advanced beginners. I would debate this as the pattern itself is incompletely worded. For example, the additional explanations for ear stitch count refer the knitter to reread the “increase” description, when what is actually used is “make one” stitch. Not a huge problem but the knitter must have a good ability to visualize pattern and adjust on the fly. I tended to trust to fate and that it would become more obvious when I was making it ... which is what happened.
  
• The duplicate stitch around the neck which is intended for further definition did not work well on my bear and from the photos on Ravelry, I am not the only person with this problem. I am thinking about experimenting with a couple of decrease rows after picking up the neck stitches ... and then doing the called for increases to shape the head. This would help define the neck, without the time taken for duplicate stitches which didn't do much.
  
• I liked the Blue Sky Alpaca organic cotton yarn as it knit up nice and soft but am dubious about giving a baby something that must be hand washed. Also, three times, the yarn simply broke and it was never at a time when it was easy to undo so I had enough length to weave in and then begin again. I am looking for substitutes but most of the cotton yarns I come across seem to be less hefty. You need something that knits up fairly tightly so the stuffing doesn't show through.