I grabbed lunch with an old friend recently, who passed this kit on from his wife (she'd received it as a baby gift but didn't knit and understandably didn't have time to learn while also caring for a newborn and a toddler). It was super thoughtful and given with no expectation that I'd made it for them, so naturally I'm going to send it their way for their new kiddo.
Pattern/Technique: Miffy Hat kit by Stitch & Story
Modifications: none
Materials: 1.5 skeins Stitch & Story The Lil Merino, shade no. 514 (cream). Face sewn with black yarn included in the kit (I suspect it's also merino due to the softness, but a more traditional woolen spun vs. plied threads)
US8 needles
New skills: seaming practice
Lessons: The yarn in the kit was beautifully soft, but made of tiny threads that aren't felted, so it was very splitty and lost its twist easily. I had to take quite a lot of care to make sure I wasn't splitting threads across rows while knitting. If I were a true beginner knitter, I'd probably have a lot of trouble working with this yarn.
Black is a high contrast yarn, so I opted to not weave in the ends of the sewn mouth/eye details. Instead I left tails on the back of the piece, triple knotted them, and then trimmed the ends.
Getting even seams is really hard (!) but luckily if you're off a row, it's pretty easy to fudge, especially on vertical seams.
It was really interesting to see what decisions were made to create a beginner/kit friendly pattern (e.g. knitting flat, then seaming vs. knitting in the round). This is a matter of personal taste, but I'd find it much easier to knit in the round and do less seaming (though this would require circular needles). I also found the tools in the kit (bamboo straight knitting needles, a plastic tapestry needle with a massive eye) were trickier to use, so I opted for my laminated wood circulars, and a smaller tapestry needle for weaving in ends. The end product was definitely lovely, but if I were a true beginner I would have found this to be a challenging kit to make.
What I'd do differently: If I made this again, I would knit the hat body in the round on a 16" circular, or using the magic loop method. The ears I'd either knit in the round on DPNs, or knit flat and seam (depending on what seems like more of a PITA at the time).
Care: Hand wash, lay flat to dry