Meet my Menagerie: Richard the Pig

Richard is one of two pigs in Edward's Menagerie. 

You'd think that working on an alpaca farm would be enough to satisfy my love of animals. Wrong. It's been fantastic the way becoming the mum of a toddler and designing Edward's Menagerie has given me the perfect excuse for numerous trips to farms, zoos and even just pet shops...

One of my favourite days out is a trip up to Harrogate for The Great Yorkshire Show. This year I hope to take Edward for the first time to peer over the pens with me at the biggest pigs I've ever seen. I'm pretty sure that he will be as excited as I am to meet all the different breeds of pig, sheep, goats and cow. In fact I am white excited now just thinking about it! When I first started developing TOFT back in 2006 I hauled my trailer full of handknits around every single agricultural show there was in the UK: the Royal Welsh, Bakewell, Newark and Notts, Royal Bath and West. You name it and I have sold alpaca knitwear there at some point in the last eight years. Camping in all weathers on a showground surrounded by partying young farmers was testing, but for me it felt like such a treat to get up very early, beg a coffee from the just-stirring food vendors, and head off to enjoying it with a large white pig. 

The 'meet my menagerie' campaign is a 50 day countdown to the official launch of my Edward's Menagerie book.  The Edward's Menagerie paperback can be ordered HERE.

Meet my Menagerie: Francis the Hedgehog

Francis is a hedgehog very close to my heart. Truth known, all hedgehogs are pretty close to my heart. 

I am a life-long member of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society thanks to being a pretty gung-ho then year old that spent all her pocket money at once. I collected any kind of hedgehog toy, every craft I did from clay making through to baking was always hedgehog themed, and I built hedgehog hotels all over Toft and bought 'spike's dinner' in the hope that they would move in. 

That said, Francis did not make it into the first .pdf of patterns, and it is only in the paperback that he makes his debut. Perhaps that's because I suspected spines might be a bit tricky, perhaps it was waiting to make sure I was good enough with my hook to do it justice, or maybe I was just waiting for the right time. 

I find it quite hard to make to the patterns to order and the collection has grown far more organically than that. I usually cement my ideas on beginning to crochet the next animal as I am sewing up the last one. This is why the collection won't really stop here: Ed's animal club is where the very latest animals go, and the patterns and yarn are exclusive to my subscribers for a while. 

The 'meet my menagerie' campaign is a 50 day countdown to the official launch of my Edward's Menagerie book.  The Edward's Menagerie paperback can be ordered HERE.

Meet my Menagerie: Penelope the Bear

Penelope began her life as a reindeer. No world of lie, the brownbear that is now very popular was originally an ill-conceived first attempt at a reindeer pattern.  With two floppy antlers strapped to her head she lasted around 48hours before I cut them off, pulled back the nose back to the colour change and crocheted my first bear. 

Cutesy teddy bears aren't my thing, but this is a strong lady who likes to wear designer shoes. She is a character that I admire, and is one of many successful female characters in Edward's Menagerie. I'm not sure a brown bear would ever have landed in the collection if it wasn't for the happy mistake, and sometimes that's how the best ones come-about.

The 'meet my menagerie' campaign is a 50 day countdown to the official launch of my Edward's Menagerie book.  The Edward's Menagerie paperback can be ordered HERE.

Meet my Menagerie: Timmy the Jack Russell

Timmy is the kind of dog that fearlessly leaps into a dark caves. 

Here at Toft we lost our Jack Russell, Ace, in 2012 at a grand old age. Like Timmy he was an adventure dog who took himself off to wherever he fancied that day. The fifth time you had to apologise for him going through the cat flap and eating the neighbour's cat food it was reasonably easy to get angry with him, but he has high spirits and was a loving pet. 

Timmy is the only dog in Edward's Menagerie. Why?  I'll let you into a bit of a secret- there are a few other dog breeds out there, but they have been made as special gifts for my nearest and dearest. Every now and again it's an indulgent pleasure of mine to just whip an animal up without writing down the pattern. So they remain one of a kind characters like their owners. 

The 'meet my menagerie' campaign is a 50 day countdown to the official launch of my Edward's Menagerie book.  The Edward's Menagerie paperback can be ordered HERE.

Meet my Menagerie: Caitlin the Giraffe

Following the launch of Edward's Menagerie in October 2013 I have been inundated with requests for a crochet giraffe pattern. I had no idea how many big giraffe fans there were out there and I am pleased to announce that Caitlin the giraffe made it into the Edward's Menagerie paperback. 

In the new paperback I have arranged the animals into three groups by their complexity, and Caitlin enters the menagerie as a level three animal due to the colour changing techniques involved.  I would strongly recommended using the technique video I have just recorded before making such of the patterns involving multiple colours. I am recommending a method that creates a clean colour change from one to another which gives you a much neater finish on your animal. 

Due to the nature of the reasonably demanding colour change pattern we are running a workshop on the 30th August where you can come and perfect all your amigurumi techniques under our expert guidance. BOOK HERE


The 'meet my menagerie' campaign is a 50 day countdown to the official launch of my Edward's Menagerie book.  The Edward's Menagerie paperback can be ordered HERE.

Meet my Menagerie: Emma the Bunny

Emma the bunny was the second animal to join the menagerie, and she rapidly became the number one favourite with all our customers. The irresistible floppy ears have made thousands of people fall in love with her and pick up their hooks and crochet the pattern.  

My niece and nephew's reaction to my second ever crochet project may well be one of the main reasons why I kept going.

Emma the bunny was catapulted to fame in a very early copy of Simply Crochet Magazine and has become the most popular little animal I've taken onto Create and Craft TV.  The bunny pattern has a broad appeal partly due to looking fantastic in most of the Toft colours.  I have personally crocheted one in stone, silver and cream, but have seen gorgeous examples in steel, fudge and mushroom.  Thousands of you have made this pattern and they can all be seen on Ravelry and on the #edsanimals hashtag.

Emma remains one of Edward's favourite animals and sits in pride of place on his  mantlepiece when she's not enjoying a cup of tea with him from his tin teaset.  I am certain that my original stone DK bunny will be in my family for a very long time.  

The 'meet my menagerie' campaign is a 50 day countdown to the official launch of my Edward's Menagerie book.  The Edward's Menagerie paperback can be ordered HERE.

Meet my Menagerie: 50 days of #edsanimals

Over the next 50 days I am going to introduce you to Edward's Menagerie.  This #50daysofcrochet campaign will start to uncover the characters that are now so much more than crochet patterns.

Each animal has had a name since September 2013, and now each animal also has a personality, vocation and back-story.

Many of you have already made many of the patterns from Edward's Menagerie, and I hope you'll be amused to read the way I perceive that animal's persona. I would of course like to add my disclaimer that the characters are all fictional.

The new Edward's Menagerie paperback contains full paragraph descriptions of each and every animal pattern.  I will be giving you a taste of their personalities.

If I pull this off I will have written an eye-watering amount of original content in just over a month.  Wish me luck.