A Loveliness of Ladybirds

One lovely young lady was the exception to my ‘knitted gifts only’ rule during the Christmas Knitting Frenzy of 2022.  What to make for a (nearly) 4 year old?  Did I mention I’d left this year’s knitted present planning to the last minute?  Of course, I couldn’t let her miss out.  I’d already bought and wrapped a Build-a-Ladybird game so…I had three days…I made her a ladybird… 

I’d found this pattern on line some time ago and it looked like it fit the bill and would easily be achieved in the time frame – just any red and black DK yarn and 2.5 mm/UK 12 needles, a needle to sew up and some toy stuffing. I got two thirds of the way through it before I realised I’d suddenly started knitting purl rows and purling knit rows. How had that happened when I’d been following the pattern very closely? Perhaps it was intentional to distinguish between the head and the body?

To make sure, I went back to square one, and at the point of changing from red to black, the knit/purl reversal started again without me even noticing it. Intentional or not, I didn’t like it and after closer inspection online, it clearly didn’t match the photograph so, after applying brainpower, pencil and paper and plotting the rows around the problem area, I saw that row 29 should be read as row 28, and the previous instruction should finish at row 27.  Tripped up by a simple typo, doh. 

No matter, the ladybird flew off my needles after that and impressed all who came across it.

Thanks to Knitting Ninja and http://twentysixstitches.blogspot.com/2007/07/army-of-ladybirds.html for this pattern from 2007 Army of Ladybirds