What's a bassoon?

When people ask me what I do for a living... I say, I'm a musician. Then of course the next question is always, what do you play?
When I answer 'the bassoon', 9 times out of 10 this is met with a blank stare, or 'is that like a violin/saxophone/trumpet?'. 'Er..not really. At all. No.'

So... I decided to knit one. Well... a mini me, holding a mini bassoon.

 To knit the basic head and body of my mini me, I used the pattern for 'little londoners' from the Stitch London book. This is really lovely book full of random quirky little things to knit, all london related, and more useful gifts too, like mug huggers and book covers.

So after knitting my basic little person, I embroidered on some eyes and a mouth, a sort of knot for the nose, and sewed on strands of wool to the scalp area for hair.

 To give the arms some structure I pushed a length of thin beading wire through each one so I could move them to the position I wanted. I did the same thing for the bassoon itself, to keep it straight, and added detail with silver thread and more wire. To attach the bassoon to the arms, I pushed a piece of wire through both pieces and back out in a U shape.

So now whenever someone asks me 'What's a bassoon?' I can whip this out of my handbag. There may also be other little musicians on the way so watch this space...

UPDATE:
This post has somehow become one of my most popular. (I never realised how many people were googling 'What's a bassoon', or 'knitted bassoon', apparently quite a few!) Thank you for the appreciative comments, and I'm pleased to say, if you'd like one of these, in your choice of colour, hair style instrument etc, they are now available at http://www.etsy.com/shop/Littleknitbits.


Emily Kate.