In preparation for the toy issue, I spent a good amount of time on Ravelry, researching the most popular, most "favorites" and most "queued" toys. The designers that consistently appear at the top of the list include Susan B. Anderson, Rebecca Danger, Anna Hrachovec (Mochimochi Land), Cheezombie and Ruth Homrighaus. They have all happily contributed some of their thoughts and inspirations behind their toy designs.

Susan B. Anderson

Susan's blog

[Some of her most popular toys include Elefante, Ribbit, Hippo (from her book Itty-Bitty Toys) and Knit Chickens]

Susan, you are a very well known toy designer, among your other pattern types. Your patterns are in the top 10 most popular toy patterns on Ravelry, including Elefante, Ribbit and Hippo, and you have many books that focus on toy designs. What draws you to designing toys so much?

I am drawn to toy design for many reasons:

1. Toys are small in size but are always an interesting and sometimes challenging knit with shaping and proportion and details.

2. Instant gratification.

3. Toys are a fun and happy category in knitting. It's all light-hearted.

4. I love small-scale projects in general and I love to knit 3-dimensional projects as well.

5. Toys make the perfect gift because they don't have to fit anyone and they last forever.

6. Toys are not trendy and will never go out of style.

7. Adults and children love knit toys, the adults even more than the kids! There is no size or age limit with toy knitting.

8. Toys are perfect to use up small amounts of yarn left over from other projects.

9. There are limitless ideas for toy knitting.

10. Knit toys make people happy!

Rebecca Danger

Rebecca's site

[Some of her most popular toy designs include Bunny Nuggets, Monster Chunks, and Daphne and Delilah the Momma and Baby Monster]

You are well known for your toys designs, too many to count! And now you have a book out as well. What inspires you to design toys over clothing garments?

When I started designing patterns, I decided to start with toys since I love to knit toys: not only are they a quick knit, they are great stash busting projects, a blast to knit for kids, and it is so east to be happy with the result since there is no fit to worry about (and I don't know lot of sweaters with personality like a knitted monster). My toy patterns have become such a hit, I haven't had time to try designing anything else!

Anna Hrachovec

Anna's site

[from Mochimochi Land, some of her most popular toy designs are Boo the Bat, Hearts, Tiny Baby Bunnies and Stackable Cats]

You are an incredibly popular toy designer. Too many popular projects to name! Many of your designs are miniature in size. Can you tell us why you like to go the mini-route, and what challenges there are when designing something so tiny?

My recent obsession is definitely knitting miniature toys! I love the idea of a project that you can make start to finish in under one hour, and so they make awesome little "just because" gifts for my friends. A big part of the challenge when designing them is taking something recognizable (an animal, food, object, etc.) and reducing it to its most basic form, then figuring out how to accomplish that with knitting. My favorite trick is using I-cords for appendages. I've been challenging myself to come up with a new "Tiny" design every week for almost two years now!

Cheezombie

Cheezombie's shop

[some of her most popular toy designs are Garden Slug, Flappy Flounder and Seahorse]

Your toy designs are so cute and quirky. Where does your inspiration for these toys come from?

Oh boy, I'm not sure how to answer this without sounding totally crazy-cakes! Inspiration comes from all over. I freely admit I watch WAY too many cartoons (I swear I'm a grownup, I just can't help myself!), and they definitely influence my designs in the simplified shapes, googley eyes & bright colors. I also love nature shows & National Geographic specials, more of the "cute animals exploring the world" type than the "starving cheetah devouring the antelope" kind. It's really helpful to see how an animal moves & interacts with the world around it when trying to translate its essence to knitting form, and they're super informative to boot. And I can't leave out Google's image search! I've spent more hours than I care to admit entering search terms like "tentacles" or "huge flippers" or "bug eyes" or "odd feet." It's truly amazing (& sometimes disgusting) the stuff that comes up. Many times I've been trolling through the images & one just grabs me & I HAVE to make that critter. Sometimes the name comes first & then the design. I pictured some mushrooms talking in a Chicago accent & Da Fungis (the fun guys) were born. Most of the time I can't pinpoint where the ideas come from, the world is such a fascinating place full of amazing creatures & I just take it all in & let it flow out of my needles :D

Ruth Homrighaus

Sheldon's Adventures

[her pattern Sheldon has over 3000 projects on Ravelry]

Sheldon has been incredibly popular (close to 3000 Ravelry projects!). What was your inspiration behind the design and tell us about any neat techniques that go into knitting Sheldon.

My good friend Rebecca was about to have her first baby, and she was doing the nursery with a turtle theme, so of course I wanted to knit her a turtle, but I couldn't find any patterns online that I liked. I had been making some of Jess Hutchinson's knitted toys from UNUSUAL TOYS FOR YOU TO KNIT AND ENJOY, so I had a decent grasp on toy-knitting mechanics, and I decided to just wing it. The body is knit in the round on double-pointed needles, shaped with increases and decreases, and the limbs are made separately and sewn on. For the shell, I was inspired by a patterned dishcloth I made out of MASON-DIXON KNITTING: while I'd been making it, I'd thought to myself, "This would make a great turtle shell pattern." Since I wanted the shell to be removable, I had to make a top, a bottom, and a body attachment panel. I added an i-cord edging to tie those three pieces together and make it pretty. The whole process was sort of a wild experiment, and I was quite excited to sell the design to Knitty. I never had the slightest idea it would turn out to be as popular as it is, but it's been a thrilling sort of out-of-body thing to witness!