I have been playing with yarn and revisiting my journals from several years ago. And the two things blended together in a fun tutorial of sorts over on my Instagram feed.

Here are some little highlights…

The creation of the bears has been quite fun, but even more remarkable has been connecting with friends in our fiber community and seeing those creative undertakings. You can see yourself by clicking #BEARBITSKNITS

Along the way, several conversations happened. If you have free time and care to watch, you can click here to watch this conversation with Kate.

My bear took a different path, and I wound up making an elephant friend, which is still in process…though isn’t that the way of it? Ideas and adventure continue to grow and expand, or maybe draw in and focus

If you would like to see how to create the bear, I share the pattern notes step by step and include video tutorials.. See more here.

I am excited to share how the little friends I created also have wee bitty homes of their own that I plan to tuck them into and wrap up this evening in preparation for doorstep deliveries on Christmas Eve Day to a few local kids here on my island home. I won’t be able to visit with the kids or see them as our island today has lost our 5th community member due to Covid. For so many months during this pandemic, our island has been insulated and safe. Only in the last couple of weeks has life here felt the harsh and bitter effects of Covid. It has caused me to be a bit quieter. I have had lots of thoughts but not many words to share. We all need time and space to process and think, to step in and out of conversations and circles, to share and contribute again when we are ready.

I do hope wherever and whenever these words here find their way to you, it is at a time when you can enjoy them, or at the very least see them as a kind hand reaching out to you! Perhaps enjoy casting on a few bears of your own. These fun little friends do not have an expiration date. You can enjoy making them any time and delivering them as a treat no matter what time of year!

Now, before you go, please catch me up on you in the comments below! How are you? What is on your needles? Any suggestions for these knitted animal friends?

In kindness and aloha,

Mel