A bright holiday wardrobe pattern modification for your #edsanimals

Our NEW super cute 25g mini-balls of coloured yarn have been sitting on the corner of my desk for a few weeks now, and have proved pretty inspiring.  

For the first time TOFT will be introducing bright coloured yarn into its range to accommodate the bright orange, yellow, blue and greens needed in my latest bird collection (book now on pre-order).  At the moment we have yellow, orange and pink available to purchase and the blue and two greens will arrive on a couple of weeks. 

It was only ever going to be a matter of time before I had some fun with these brights and the classic Edward's Menagerie standard form. So here we have it: simple pattern modifications to give your #edsanimals a T-shirt or shorts. 

Shorts

I selected Austin the Rhino and used my favourite colour to give him a fetching pair of swim shorts. 

Starting in your shorts colour work the standard body up to the start of Rnd 14 where you colour change to your animal's colour. 

Work your bottom legs as normal in your animal's colour and change to your shorts colour at the start of Rnd 14. 

T- shirt 

Here's Piotr the Polarbear and our NEW orange. Start your standard body as normal in your selected animal's colour and colour change to your t-shirt colour at the start of Rnd 16. 

Work your two top legs as normal until colour changing to your t-shirt colour at Rnd 14. 

You'd just need one 25g ball of our NEW yarn to add your shorts or t-shirt to your animal (and still have plenty left for a beak or two!). 

Looking forward to seeing your pictures- I have already had an elephant with a pink T-shirt request from Edward so I had better get back to my crochet! 

Kerry 

Edward turns two.

Happy Birthday Edward! Two years after I first picked up a crochet hook and book sales on the #edsanimals collection are soaring. 

We enjoyed a fantastic day at the zoo, getting inspired by all the new animals. The zebra are always popular, but Ed's favourite is always the Giant Tortoise. 

His Grandma and Grandad decided to surprise him with two very special gifts. They have been named 'apple' and 'cheese' by Edward and this is their mansion! They will be living at Toft along with the 200 alpacas and Ed and I will enjoy giving them breakfast and cuddles everyday. 

In fact Edward was so thrilled with the guineapigs that he got in their hutch to help setup their beds! 

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.

Fifty animals in Edward's Menagerie: introducing the last ten to join.

I remember thinking back in late September 2012 that perhaps having crocheted ten animals was 'a bit much'. Then when I stood on our Ally Pally tradestand in October 2013 I was quite overwhelmed by what thirty animals look like collectively.

 If I'm completely honest I am quite intimidated by the thought of having to see a giant pile of the now fifty animals in the Edward's Menagerie collection next time we build a tradestand! 

In that time it's not just the menagerie and my crochet skills that have grown and developed. I now have a running, chattering, boisterous toddler making it ever harder to find time to crochet (not that I'm complaining!). 

The latest ten animals to have their eyes sewn on are the ten bonus patterns available as a .pdf when you place a pre-order for the NEW paperback. 

Susan the Badger

Erica the Camel

Sheila the Kangaroo

Logan the Moose

Donna the Reindeer

Harriet the Sloth

Andre the Lemur

Zack the Skunk

Mae the Snowleopard

Frank the Armadillo

As the original animals now all have fully fledged characters, these too will reveal their occupations, hobbies and habits through a #50daysofcrochet campaign coming soon. 

I have been startled and thrilled by the numbers of you that have already pre-ordered the book. I know you'll fall further in love with Edward's Menagerie when it finally lands here at Toft and we get it straight out to your doormats and coffee tables. 

  

There's no hiding now: Edward's Menagerie is being published inpaperback

Well, the cat's out of the bag. Edward's Menagerie had been officially published by David and Charles and is up for pre-order on Amazon (and with us of course). 

That said, if you order it direct from TOFT then I've thrown in a bonus .pdf with a further ten additional patterns including a lindyhopping lemur... seriously. 

Pre-order here £15.99: 

I can't really believe that I've crocheted fifty original animals. Fifty. That's a lot of amigurumi and the double crochet stitch. Please don't ask me how I found the time to do this with a baby- I quite frankly have no idea. 

Over the next couple of months you're about to see a pretty special social media campaign. Here at the Toft office we have grown to become very fond of the characters from Edward's Menagerie. With the help of my very enthusiastic colleagues I've prepared something that I hope will entertain and amuse you all. 

Watch this space. 

Right now I feel like this 👆

The creation of Edward's Menagerie has been a real pleasure, and the best is yet to come once I see all your animals!  #edsanimals 

But for now it's time to catch up on some sleep.