The Professor Owl & Mr Prickles The Giant Hedgehog in King Cole Tinsel Chunky & DK - 9018 - Downloadable PDF

Pattern Summary: The Professor Owl & Mr Prickles The Giant Hedgehog – King Cole Tinsel Chunky & DK (Pattern 9018)

This King Cole pattern 9018 is a knitted toy pattern featuring two charming and characterful soft toys: The Professor Owl and Mr Prickles The Giant Hedgehog. Both designs are presented in rainbow versions, making them vibrant, eye-catching makes that are perfect for children and collectors alike. The finished toys are generously sized — The Professor Owl measures approximately 35 x 19 cm and Mr Prickles The Giant Hedgehog measures approximately 31 x 20 cm — making them substantial, huggable companions. This is a downloadable PDF pattern, so you can get started right away after purchase.

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What You Will Make

• The Professor Owl – A large, characterful knitted owl toy with distinct facial features including eye sockets, eyeballs, and a beak, all carefully positioned and sewn in place for a lifelike, expressive finish. The rainbow colourway gives this wise bird a wonderfully playful, modern look.
• Mr Prickles The Giant Hedgehog – A large knitted hedgehog toy, also worked in the rainbow colourway using King Cole Tinsel Chunky, creating a wonderfully textured, spiky appearance that perfectly evokes a hedgehog's distinctive coat.

Materials Required

• King Cole Tinsel Chunky – The primary yarn used for both toys. The tinsel yarn provides a sparkling, textured finish that is ideal for creating the characteristic look of both the owl's feathers and the hedgehog's prickles. Used in your choice of colour for the rainbow versions.
• King Cole DK – A double knitting weight yarn used alongside the Tinsel Chunky, likely for finer details and contrast elements on the toys.
• 5mm knitting needles – Specified for working the owl body and other main sections of the pattern.

Knitting Techniques Used

This pattern is rated as intermediate difficulty, making it a rewarding project for knitters who are comfortable with the basics and ready to develop their skills further. The construction of both toys involves shaping techniques throughout, requiring knitters to work increases and decreases to form the three-dimensional bodies of the characters.

• Stocking stitch (St.st) – Worked by alternating one knit row and one purl row, this is used to create smooth, flat fabric sections of the toys.
• Garter stitch (g.st) – Worked by knitting every row, producing a ridged, stretchy fabric that adds texture and structure to certain sections.
• Increasing (Inc) – Worked by knitting into the front and back of a stitch, adding one stitch and used to shape the bodies of both toys as they are built up.
• M1 (Make 1) – A neat increase worked by picking up the strand between the last and next stitch and working into the back of it, creating an almost invisible extra stitch.
• K2tog (Knit 2 Together) – A simple right-leaning decrease used to reduce stitch counts and shape the toys.
• Dec (Decrease) – General decreasing by working two stitches together, used throughout to sculpt the rounded forms of both characters.

Stitches Used

• Knit (K)
• Purl (P)
• Stocking stitch
• Garter stitch

Construction and Finishing

Both toys are knitted in separate pieces that are then assembled by sewing together. The pattern includes detailed instructions for constructing and attaching the individual facial features of The Professor Owl, including the precise placement of the beak centrally between the eyeballs and the careful positioning of the eye sockets. This kind of making