When John Lewis announced last Friday that it was launching a £20 Knit Your Own Snowman kit to tie in with its brand new Christmas ad about the snowman who goes to the ends of the earth (well, John Lewis), battling the elements along the way, to buy his snow-woman the present of her dreams, I decided to set myself a challenge and see how far I’d go to get the whole snowman knitted in a single weekend.
Having boasted of knitting babies’ cardigans with rows of ducks round the edges I’d — possibly rashly — assumed this would be a breeze. Since Knit Your Own Royal Family and Olympic Athletes kits have become such a big trend this year, how hard could it be?
I started knitting on Saturday afternoon. A few hours later I had reached the snowman’s ample-girthed body and began to realise just what I’d taken on. At one point I realised I’d forgotten how to cast on stitches at the beginning of a new row but thankfully a YouTube demo came to the rescue.
I was still knitting at midnight and even though I was tired and my wrists were aching, I was determined to finish the body. In fact, I couldn’t resist going to the airing cupboard and excavating some hollow fibre filling from a cheap cushion to stuff him with. He plumped out nicely and started to look like the picture in the pattern, so I went to bed happy even though I still had the cap, hands, scarf and nose to do.
On Sunday morning I listened to the Remembrance Day service on the radio, knitting. Friends prepared and served Sunday lunch while I knitted.
By the time I got to the arms, I thought the end was in sight, but found them to be extremely fiddly. This is not a kit for beginners; it was testing even for this intermediate knitter.
And the finished result? Apart from a skewed cap, my Snowman came out perfectly, thanks to the impeccable instructions. I did make one alteration, however, and that was to the expression on his face. I decided to give him a big smile. After all, if he is the big bestseller that people are predicting, he should be laughing all the way to the bank.
