One reason I love being an occupational therapist is that it gives me the excuse and the opportunity to be creative in a variety of different mediums. I don’t remember the full sequence of events, but somehow when I was preparing to photograph the first few beanies that my mother had knitted, I thought of knitting a toy turtle. Perhaps we had begun to remember all the knitting I had done through the years. If so, I would definitely have thought of a toy rabbit I had knitted for my cousin.
Whatever the reason, we began talking about knitting toys and that lead to my thinking of our kids book “Tuvia Finds His Freedom“. I decided that having a toy turtle would be very useful when giving a talk or doing a workshop. Since I don’t have a pet turtle, I can use the toy to teach a few ideas about tortoises and turtles. Having a demonstration doll or toy is something I am familiar with from my infant massage workshops, so this made a lot of sense to me.
From idea to completed toy has been quite a process. I searched for toy turtles. There are quite a few Ninja turtles but that is not what I was looking for. I noticed a toy on a website that was actually very close in its appearance to the original turtle in our book. Sadly the website did not offer a pattern. The search continued…
I found quite a number of patterns for tortoises, but I really wanted to knit a turtle. Perhaps I will get to do a tortoise in due course. In the end I settled for a pattern that is not exactly what I wanted, but it’s a good start.
Have a look in the video below. Let me know what your thoughts are about our new little toy.
I hope you enjoyed the little video and meeting our new toy.
If you are interested in purchasing a copy of “Tuvia Finds His Freedom” in English or in Hebrew or both, you can find it on this website or on Amazon or other online stores. If you would like to order a toy or other hand knitted item, please be in touch to place an order or search our store for any items that are already complete.
