No Vegetable is Safe...from Bunnicula!

He isn’t actually Bunnicula (who happens to be a black and white rabbit), but he is a vampire bunny, so those vegetables better be careful. Anyone else remember the Bunnicula books by James Howe? I used to love them when I was a kid. I picked up a couple at the library the other day and was pleased to discover they are quite clever and well written. Often when I try to reread a book from my childhood the writing falls flat, but not in this case. So if you need some light, goofy summer reading, or you have children between the ages of 8-12, I highly recommend the Bunnicula books.

Anyways, I seem to be going through a scary bunny phase right now. I just rewatched Donnie Darko last week and saw a very cool zombie bunny created by Craftster DeadGirl and those two things got me thinking about creating a vampire bunny.

This little guy was made using the basic head and body shape from Christen Haden’s Creep Cute Crochet. Since, that’s copyrighted I’m not going to post the instructions, but I will share what I did for the ears and cape. You can either use the head and body from the book or develop your own head and body shapes.

Consider these general instructions for crochet bunny ears and a cape. You can easily adjust their size by changing the number of chains in your base chain or working for more rows/rounds than I’ve suggested.

Bunny Ears

ch= chain
hdc = half double crochet
dc = doube crochet

using size E (3.5mm) hook

ch 10, hdc in third chain from hook. Hdc one in each chain space up to last ch space. 3 hdc in last chain space. Now crochet on the bottom side of the chain, putting one hdc in the base of each chain space, and two hdc in the last ch space. Sl st into first stitch and fasten off.

Cape

Using size F (3.75mm) hook

ch 18, dc in fourth chain from hook, then dc in each chain space across. Turn.
Row 1: ch 3, and in back loop only 2 dc in first stitch, one dc in each st to last st, 2 dc in last st. Turn.
Row 2: (crocheting normally again through both loops) ch 3, 2 dc in first st, dc in each st across to last st. 2 dc in last st. Turn.
Repeat Row 2 until cape reaches desired length, then fasten off.

This is the Zombie Bunny that was created by Craftster user DeadGirl.

The Best of Bunnies!

With Easter just around the corner I thought it would be a good time to take a look at some cute crochet bunnies. I'm hoping to create my own bunny with some Fun Fur-style wool that I found at a Dollarama recently. Until then, here's a look at some of my favorite free bunny patterns. All of these are fairly small and wouldn't take too much time to crochet. If you start now I'm sure you'll be done by Easter!

Working with fuzzy yarns is always a bit more frustrating and time consuming than your typical worsted weight. If you do decide to attempt a fluffy bunny of some sort take a moment to read through the Fuzzy Yarn Tips posted by PlanetJune. They just may save you a few headaches.

And now on with the patterns. First up, in the top left corner, is Ami Bunny by BertaBerta and it can be found on this craftster post. You can see more pictures of the bunny in the original post, but you have to jump to page 4 in the replies to find the tutorial.



Above is Best Bunny and it's available as a free download from Lion Brand. Keep in mind that you have to register for a free membership on Lion Brand's website in order to access their patterns. I'm not crazy about the colours they've chosen for the model, but that's easy enough to change. I like the overall shape of this bunny and I think it would look good in a softer, fluffier yarn.



Finally, last and certainly not least, are the Evil (Bunni) Minions which were created by gnathalie2. They are also posted on Craftster and are available here. I figure anyone who's visiting Cthulhu Crochet and Cousins is probably looking for something a bit unusual and these are certainly my favorite unconventional Easter bunnies. Although it looks like they'll be too busy storming the castle to bring us any chocolate eggs!