Knitting from the Bunny Planet

Long ago and far away, when Clare and Marco were little and John was still in the Mind of God, I stumbled across a slip-cased set of little children's books by Rosemary Wells called Voyage to the Bunny Planet. Three little stories. Three separate bunny children. Each with their own story of ordinary disasters and mundane trials. Three nibbled to death by ducks days. Each one needs a visit to the Bunny Planet: "Out beyond the moon and stars, twenty light years south of Mars, spins the gentle Bunny Planet. And the Bunny Queen is Janet." Janet says to each child "Come in. Here's the day that should have been." I haven't read or even thought of the stories in years. I needed to hunt them out once I finished fixing "Branching Out."

I know I am a capable and intelligent adult. I know I have achieved a good solid apprentice/journeyman level of knitting competence in a shorter time than I would have thought possible. I am astounded and gratified by every new pattern I learn, every object I finish, and every mistake I learn how to fix all by myself. I know that making mistakes is one of those ordinary disasters and mundane trials that come with knitting.

This does not mean I went calmly or happily into dropping down through about sixty rows of perfectly good knitting to get to each of the two offending stitches, and then hooking everything back up. Honesty compels me to admit I did it twice. For each stitch. It's very important to check the back of your work when making repairs. Had I looked early, or even often, I would have noticed that I missed a stitch down at the very beginning before I (as I thought) finished. I would like to report that I faced the necessity of repeating the repairs with grace and equanimity. I would be lying. This is when I started thinking about the Bunny Planet. I would have given much for a visit from the Bunny Queen.

Two observations here. I would like to thank Garter Stitch from the bottom of my heart for being constructed in such a way that each rung of the dropped stitch ladder provides a clue as to whether I should be pulling the rung through the front of the previous stitch or the back. I had never before had so extensive an opportunity to notice.













And I need to fill in my collection of crochet hooks.












So. Here's "Branching Out" as it should have been.

Ten repeats (one for good luck). No unintentional mistakes. There are, actually, a series of mistakes that I made so consistently I've decided to call them a design element. And I only fixed two of the three purl stitches in the border. I can live with it.

At the end of the Bunny Planet stories each child looks out the window and sees the Bunny Planet in the night sky. "It was there all along."

Happy endings all around.
**all quotes from the Viking Edition, copyright 1992 by Rosemary Wells.