Rusty the red panda beanie baby watches over the little red and giant pandas.
It’s another free pattern based on toys from Rebecca Danger’s 50 Yards of Fun.
These little guys were made for the Boston area NaNoWriMo group. NaNoWriMo (aka National Novel Writing Month) happens every November. People around the world spend the month getting together in coffee shops and libraries and writing millions of words in an effort to create 50,000 word bad first drafts of novels. The goal is quantity, not quality – a chance to simply write without your inner editor getting in the way. I’ve used a couple of Novembers as DinoKniMo, working up first drafts of some of my dinosaur patterns.
For the past several years, I’ve knit up a bunch of tiny writing buddies for Boston NaNo to use to fundraise. NaNoWriMo is an almost entirely volunteer effort and participants contribute what they can to help fund it. Each September I make several knitted amigurumi animals that get sold at write-ins with the proceeds donated to NaNo.
I’ve made up a pair of small and large red pandas for the past four years and last year one of Boston’s Municipal Liaisons (the folks who volunteer to steer the official November meetings for the area) asked if I could send some black and white pandas as well. Hence the Pandapalooza on my sofa before the year’s writing buddies were sent off to their forever homes in greater Boston.
As with the Animal Luchadores, the free pattern contains only my additions and variations on Danger’s original patterns. You will need to get a copy of her book from your local library or online for the base patterns. Happy knitting, and be sure to check out NaNoWriMo if you have any interest in writing (novels or patterns).