Before the COVID-19 epidemic happened, I had a trip home to Australia and NZ planned – we had planned it 6 months in advance. Unfortunately, our trip was planned for April. We watched with bated breath and disbelief, as the virus started to spread outside of Wuhan. Travel was ill advised, and flights started to be cancelled. The first cases started appearing abroad.

The weeks leading up to our trip was touch and go, but it soon became apparent that we wouldn’t be able to complete our pilgrimage. Our flights were cancelled, as we had expected, and we proceeded to cancel our other arrangements such as hotels and car hire. We were unable to contact any of the airlines, due to the amount of people calling for the same issue. They had issued us with credits, which is not what we wanted. We wanted our money back – and are still waiting. A few weeks later, the UK went into full lockdown – we were no longer able to leave our homes without good reason.

So, our plans cancelled and we’re on forced lockdown, what to do now? Unfortunately, I had saved my leave from the previous year specifically for this trip. Which meant that if I didn’t use it by April 30, I would lose it without compensation. I decided it was better to sit at home not working, than to lose my leave all together. I made plans – more mental lists – of all the things I wanted to achieve in those three weeks. I wanted to spring clean, rearrange cupboard contents and craft to my heart’s content.

As my partner was still working, I couldn’t bash away on my piano keys (they make quite a significant ‘thud’), so I looked through old patterns, facebook groups and ravelry to figure out what I could make.

As a child – and an adult – I’ve always loved Beatrix Potter. something about the simple yet beautiful watercolours always drew me to the books. I also tried to copy the watercolours with limited success. As I grew older, they became objects of reminiscence of my childhood when I idolised the images and adored the stories. They hold a place close to my heart. So naturally, when Peter Rabbit and friends popped up on my facebook feed, I knew I had to have the pattern.

I found they were from the Simply Crochet magazine. I waded through countless websites trying to find the issue number. Then upon finding the issue number, tracking down a digital copy of it. With luck and a little help from my other half, we managed to find the correct issue. Just after getting the magazine, I realised I could have saved myself the search, as they were also available for purchase on Ravelry! Never mind, my search was over, and I had my hands on the pattern (metaphorically so to speak).

The yarn used in the pattern is an expensive West York Spinners wool. Whilst I love expensive wool yarns, I don’t so much for amigurumi – especially when you need so many different colours. So I spent an evening comparing the recommended yarn colour, to a DK acrylic substitute, and loaded my virtual shopping cart with multiple brands of acrylic DK yarn and clicked checkout.

Now what to do whilst the wool arrives? It popped into my head that my amazing mother had bought me a Llama making kit. I pulled it out of my yarn stash and set to work! I ran short on the fluffy yarn, but adjusted the length of the legs by shortening the fluff one row, and managed to compromise on what would have been a yarn chicken loss. And he’s adorable. Unfortunately you can’t get the llama kit in the UK. If you’re in Australia, they were available from Spotlight. For those wanting to make a llama, there are a few other free designs online – usually called ‘No Drama Llama’. I know the crochet crowd had one of their own patterns for one.

After finishing my llama, a couple of days later my mismatched order of acrylic turned up. The colours were perfect in my opinion. Although the different brands had the same gauge listed on the wrappers, some were definitely different. The green for Benjamin Bunny’s hat, and the red for his pom pom, were a lot softer than the other brands, and tended to come up in larger proportions. For me this was perfect, as I wanted the hat bigger than the one shown in the original pattern. The books always had a gigantic hat that dwarfed Benjamin, so I wanted something closer to that image. For Mrs Tiggywinkle, the pattern called for a charcoal type colour, but in the books she’s a brown/brindle. so I chose a colour closer to the book colouring. I had to do a bit of searching to also purchase tiny buttons for Peter’s coat. Overall, I am very pleased with the yarn I purchased, and am thoroughly overjoyed with how they turned out.