Need a last minute Easter gift or decoration? Try one of these chicken egg cozies. They take just about an hour from start to finish, and they work really well in using up spare bits of yarn and felt around the home.

Years ago, my mother had purchased some chicken plastic egg cozies, and each person in my family had one that we used to decorate for Easter. Over time, they all became lost. I started a family of my own, and, as silly as it sounds, I wanted to have some chicken egg cozies for each of us in my new family. Initially, I thought the chickens were crocheted. I looked online for patterns, both knit and crocheted, but nothing was really like the ones my mom had. My mom did eventually find one of the original chickens for me, and, to my pleasant surprise, they were knit (at that time, I didn’t crochet). This pattern was written based on one of those original chickens. I've had the pattern figured out for a couple of years now, but just got around to putting it up. I'm kind of lazy that way.

Chicken Egg Cozy pattern

Needles: US size 4, 5, or 6 (3.5, 3.75, or 4 mm) or size needed to obtain gauge. Finished knitted piece is
about 5.5 inches long, so you need to get to roughly 5.5 stitches/inch. Keep in mind, many plastic eggs are about 6.5 inches around from the tip of the egg to the bottom and back, and you want to have the piece stretch out to fit firmly around the egg.

Yarn: About 13-15 yards of any worsted weight or sport weight yarn. Red Heart Baby Teri was used for the one pictured. I also used Bernat Baby Coordinates. Gauge is essential! If you don’t meet your gauge, the chicken may be too tight or too loose to fit around the egg. For the Baby Teri, I used size 4 needles, but the Bernat Baby Coordinates I had to go with a 6, and might even recommend a 7.

Googly eyes, 7mm.

Small bits of red and yellow felt.

Sewing thread to either match felt colors or chicken color.

Instructions:

Cast on 30 stitches. Leave long tail for seaming.
K1, P1, repeat to end. Work three more rows of 1x1 ribbing.
Rows 5-12: Knit.
Bind off 10 stitches, knit 9 more (10 total on needle right now), bind off last 10. Break yarn. There should be 10 stitches left in the middle of the piece as shown below.



Join in yarn to the live 10 stitches left on needle, leaving a long tail for seaming. Purl the first row.
Row 2, 4, and 6: K
Rows 3 and 5: Purl.
Bind off in purl. It will look like this:




To finish:

Fold knitted piece in half vertically down the center stockinette piece, creating the head and body. It should look like this:



Weave in ends not used for seaming. Seam up top and back of head. Seam up back of chicken. DO NOT SEAM TOP OR BOTTOM OF CHICKEN BODY.

To create tail, thread yarn at top of back seam of chicken from inside out. Wrap yarn around a couple of fingers, and thread back into back of chicken. Repeat this 7 times or until you get a tail as full as you want. Tie off.

Using red felt, cut two small circles slightly larger than googly eyes. Glue felt to sides of head, then glue eyes on top of felt circles. To create comb, cut a piece that will fit the top of the head with three or four bumps at the top. Sew to top of head.

Using yellow felt, cut a small triangle. It might work well to just cut off the corner of a square piece of felt. Sew beak on with the tip of the triangle facing down, sewing only at the base of the beak.

Insert a standard size plastic egg into the bottom of the chicken with tip of egg in the front.

So I found out that apparently my website was used for an anti-Pope post last year when it was hacked. I knew it was hacked, and a lot of sites on that server were. And now I'm trying to fix things and it's not working too well. Blech.

We didn't get from underneath all of those jobs for work until this past week, and so I haven't made much progress since that point on any seaming for Illyria's dress. And, being the type of person I am, I've started Knitty's Broadripple socks. Yep, I'm knitting socks. It's a first for me, and I've been knitting now for several years. I've gotten pretty far on the first one for only having started yesterday. It's just so much easier for me to think of knitting something than seaming. Much less tedious. And since Illyria's dress is lace, I'd rather not think about seaming things right now. I will probably do a bit of seaming today, though.

Even further today with Illyria's dress. I have one bootie seamed and complete with ribbon. The rest will have to wait until we don't have 380 jobs sitting in our queue. The good news is that I think it should fit her when she is a year and not immediately. I had her put on the bootie already, and it was just a bit too big yet. As it will most likely better fit her in a few months, I won't feel rushed to get it done in the next couple of days (as the girls are having pictures done Tuesday), and I'll have a nice dress for her for Christmas/her birthday.

Finally! I'm finished knitting all of Illyria's dress. Now onto the seaming part...

I know I've been a bum about updating this, but quite honestly, I have had nothing to report. I've been working on Illyria's dress for ages, but it's just about complete now. Luckily, I think she should still be able to wear it by the time I am complete. Right now, I've just got to rip out the top of the front of the dress and reknit that (that won't take long at all, really) because I made it a little too high, and then I've got to add on the picot edging to the dress and bonnet, and finally I have to block and seam it.

Here are some pictures of the dress as I was blocking the back prior to finding out I had knit up too far.





I also still have to complete the hat, and my dad's dragon, and I have to get some work done on some Fibre-Craft mermaid pillow dolls for the girls. Those are crocheted, though, and I'm still working on getting that down.

Ugh, sorry it's taken me forever to update. Of note:

-I finished that bear. I will post pictures later, but you will be able to see it in the Men and Boys (title pending) Stitch n Bitch book this fall, pattern and all

-Currently working on a hat with the Grendel pattern on it, a yellow lace dress for the baby (who is almost 7 months already!) and the Norberta dragon from Knitty. I hadn't knitted much in the last month or two, as I was busy getting a work experience in medical transcription, getting my girls set up in daycare, and just being busy in general.

Will post pictures later, and perhaps post some other things in this oft-neglected blog.

Progress!

This week, or possibly early next, I should be all done knitting the bear. Below is the picture of what I have finished so far. Basically, I've got the arms and legs, body, head, tail, and bee done. All I need to do now is knit the ears, muzzle, and blood, sew on the eyes, nose, and mouth, and then stuff and seam the thing. I'm excited it's almost complete, and I'm rather proud that I've learned new things while creating the pattern.