Cupcake Fails and Cupcake Wins...

Last year I decided to knit some cupcakes for Christmas for the many three year olds in my life, including Miss S.  Simple, I thought, I'll just get a free pattern from the internet, knit up sets of six in various gorgeous colours, and "voila".

Not so much - and so started a journey into the fabulous world of knitted cupcakes et al, with all its failures and eventual success!

First attempt:

I can knit in the round on DPNs, but I prefer not to because I'm a lazy knitter and I like to watch TV while I do it, and having all those needles dangling about does my head in, so my first attempt was adapting a knitting in the round pattern onto straight needles:

"The Deflated Boob"

Ha ha...  not enough stuffing, crooked and knit a bit loose.  Miss S liked it though, so I continued on with that pattern and knitted some other "flavours", experimenting with the pattern to get the look I was after, but all I came up with was this group of mis-matched weirdos:

"The Motley Crew"

Their bases are too bulbous, and they are inexplicably different sizes, but I found the sprinkles and choc drops fun :).

So I turned to crochet, thinking that I might be able to make a more rigid fabric and control the shape more.  In my internet searches I stumbled upon the wonderful world of Amigurumi, a Japanese type of crochet.  I vaguely remembered how to crochet (I nagged my Grandmother to teach me when I was about 10), but a few YouTube tutorials later and I was good to go.

"The, I think I'm Turning Japanese"

Here is the free pattern, if you would like to try one yourself:

http://nimoe.wordpress.com/2007/12/16/cupcake-pattern/

I didn't sew the face on mine as shown in the pattern and I simplified the cherry, but I think it's quite cute.

I then got a little distracted and free-crocheted a little strawberry and cherry tomato, for Miss S.

Anyway, back to the cupcakes.  Finally, after googling late into the night I came across a pattern that had the shape I was after and set about seeing if it would work... and it really is the best I've found.

Here is the pattern:

http://beeknit.blogspot.com/2008/02/cake-glorious-cake.html

And here is my banana choc chip version from this pattern:

And, of course, the requested 'pink with sprinkles'...

Now it seems, all the four year olds in my life might be getting some cupcakes for Christmas 2010... :)