Just a quickee post today. Aren’t these guys a hoot?
Slugs, knit in oddments of Noro Silk Garden, with Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride lips and eyeballs.
A great little pattern: Garden Slug by Ravelry’s Cheezombie. Her Etsy shop says she specializes in knit and crochet patterns “of the silly kind.”
This is a ridiculously quick knit. The only bit of a pain is that you need to weight the slug’s nether parts otherwise he falls forward on his eyeballs. I didn’t have any poly-beads available so I used some extra metal pieces left from an IKEA build. The metal bits make these not fit for small humans. But that’s not all that bad.
This is Alan. Ngoc Vu says that Alan is my friendly crocodile. Ngoc Vu lives in Ho Chi Minh (Ngoc Vu, not Alan) and she is the first Vietnamese knit designer whose patterns I’ve knit. Her English version Alan pattern is clearly written and free of errors. It’s extremely detailed and very long–28 pages–with gobs of great photo illustrations. Good golly, Miss Molly, it’s worth the read (and the knitting time)!
I typically prefer to work from paper patterns. I know, so old school. This time I decided to save some trees and print only about half the pages. When I needed help from the photos, I checked out the full pattern on my desktop or IPad.
I knit Alan in Plymouth Yarns DK Merino Superwash. It worked up very nicely in this pattern.
One of Alan’s excellent features is how his beefy tail keeps him balanced on his feet. It functions like a kickstand on a bike.
Alan, in all his 28-page glory, is totally worth the considerable time required to knit him. But brace yourself for a major sewing project when your knitting’s complete. Some of his parts could easily be knit in the round. Instead, I followed the pattern exactly on this my first knit. Well, except…after knitting Alan’s black sunglasses, I decided I didn’t want those totally cute cupcake-shaped croc eyes obscured by a pair of shades.
Ngoc Vu has a wonderful and very distinctive set of knit toy patterns available on Ravelry. Check them out here. Alan was my first knit from her collection. I’m especially taken with her Wild Bunny Amie and Angry Cat Labby.
Yep. The knitted toys continue. Today it’s puppets. My entire set is designed by Karen Dimeler-Laurence. Check out “Critter Mitts” in her Toy Box eBook available at KnitPicks. If you link through via Ravelry you can also check out other versions of these puppets. Mine are all knit in Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride worsted. The bright colors really sing in these puppets.
First up: Triceratops. Three horns. Great top display. Excellent mouth. He’ll be shouting all sorts of scary stuff in no time at all.
I decided to knit this entire set with safety eyes. My embroidery skills are minimal. And the eyes looked quite spiffy when I first tried them on for size. One caveat though: the stems of the safety eyes are pretty scratchy rubbing against the top of the hand. So it’s not impossible that these critters might actually draw blood if someone jams their hand into the puppet too aggressively. Embroidering the eyes would be better for the youngest of puppeteers in your clan.
Here’s Tyrannosaurus Rex, of course. Quite a set of choppers. But my favorite part is probably the effect created by his silly little…well, arms.
My only modification to T-Rex was to add a row of garter stitch to the teeth, after the cast-on, before beginning the picot bind-off. I felt it would give his teeth more heft.
Next up: Sea Monster.
Again, I added that extra row of garter stitch–this time to the monster’s side frills. And nice super-big eyes, just because.
You’ve probably already noticed that these puppets are really one basic pattern. Up to the spot in the pattern where you put stitches on a holder to create the mouth hole, you’re just knitting a mitten. Same for after the mouth hole. Instead of knitting a thumb, you continue with the bottom of the mouth in the skin color. Then you knit a mouth patch that you’ll later sew in place. The different critters are achieved by knitting different embellishments.
Knitting that loop stitch mane was the high point of working on the Lion.
The patterns tell you, carefully, where to place the facial features.
I’m already thinking about how I will display my puppets in my new craft room. The Campbell’s Soup can I used for their porch pedestal photos actually worked fairly well though. In addition to these four critters, the pattern provides instructions for a platypus and a zebra.
I knit this set once before back in 2016. Such fun!
You probably noticed the anglerfish I improvised in my earlier set. My grandson liked anglerfish. Here’s a closer look at him. (The Anglerfish, not Isaac.)
I have a strong “blind follower” streak in my knitting most times. This pattern invites improvising.
It’s June but the toy production here is more like Santa’s workshop in the final push before Christmas. This sweetie is another Annita Wilschut pattern, Frog Kikker. That pattern name is a total lingual stutter because Kikker is “frog” in Dutch. I’ve taken to calling him Froggie Frog.
I knit Froggie Frog in Merino Extrafine 120 by Schachenmayr, a DK weight. You have to keep your knit wits about you to get those joints turning correctly. But the directions are spot on correct. Watch especially for directions that tell a knitter to knit a certain number of stitches beyond the end of a round marker.
Especially since Jutta posed nude in my last post, I decided Froggie Frog should take his swim trunks off. He was unphased by the request and doesn’t understand one bit why Jutta objected.
Totally cute critter.
Next up is Wilschut’sPiglet Knor. Google translates “knor” as “oink.” Sounds right to me. Some knit this oinker in a different colorway for different sections. That was loads of fun in Olivier. But this time I decided to go for a bit less color.
Hard to accept that shocking pink as a bit less color, though. The upturned snout gives Oink a bit of an attitude.
And the curly tail. Well, every oinker needs a curly tail.
Next? The best monkey on Ravelry: Jacobus. I’ve knit Jacobus (and Saar) before and dressed them in Wilschut’s patterns. This time I decided to let the yarn dress Jacobus. Adriafil KnitCol (DK) did quite a nice job of it.
The yarn’s self-patterning features make it look like Jake’s wearing a jumpsuit.
And now, in profile.
Such a nicely shaped jaw line. Oh. Muzzle. I guess that would be a monkey’s muzzle.
All great patterns. And wonderfully fun to knit. I know. Do you think I’m a bit of a Wilschut fangirl?
I am totally tickled with MY Jutta. Yep, I’ve decided I’m keeping her for me. My plan is to fill my new craft room with creations that make me smile. Jutta, another Annita Wilschut design, definitely fits that bill.
I knit Jutta in a mix of yarns, maybe the most prominent being Plymouth Yarn Worsted Merino Superwash Solid in the creme shade I used to knit Jutta’s body. I likely shouldn’t have used such “soft” superwash for the body though. A more rustic or at least a non-superwash would have been better. Despite being knit at a tight gauge the stuffing emphasizes all the increases and decreases and even made the head a little too heart-shaped. She’s still super-cute though. And her clothes cover a multitude of knitting sins.
Now that I think more about it, possibly Jutta’s most prominent yarn is the Adriafil KnitCol that I used for the more colorful strands of her hair. The hair is a mix of KnitCol and Schachenmayr Merino Extrafine 120 (the brown strands).
The directions for how to knit the I-cord hair strands are excellent, complete with photos. It’s quite an unusual technique that allows you to knit multiple I-cord strands direct to Jutta’s scalp. No sewing. If you’re still puzzling over the technique, maybe this will help:
The scalp is covered with rounds of staggered sets of 3 purls and 1 knit stitches. You take a small sized double-pointed needle and pick up a stitch in each of the 3 purl bumps, say for about 8 sets of bumps, all at the same “level” in the scalp rounds. Cut a length of yarn about 10 feet long (or longer). Fold the yarn in half.
Knit the first stitch at that half-way-point in the yarn. For the 2nd and 3rd stitch, knit them with BOTH strands of the yarn. For the 4th-6th stitches, do the same as 1-3 BUT with only one of the strands of the length of yarn you folded in half. You need one (folded) strand for each set of 6 stitches. Each half-strand is going to make a single 3-stitch I-cord. After you knit a row of as many pairs of 3-stitches as you can manage on your double-pointed needles, slide all the stitches to the ‘other’ end of the needle—like you would for any I-cord—and knit the next row on each cord, using the yarn that’s dangling from every third stitch to knit the first stitch of each set. Keep that up until you exhaust your length of yarn. Then start a new set of Icords. Very clever technique.
I couldn’t leave Jutta without embarrassing her with another naked shot. Love the butt! And here she is again, just to leave her looking more put together. I’ve knit Jutta once before.
Next up is Wilschut’s Olivier. I knit him in leftover oddballs of Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted. I knit Olivier once before and used a mix of worsted weight yarns, with the result that some of the limbs “took” the stuffing differently that resulted in some limbs not quite matching size-wise. Using all the same yarn solved that.
Olivier is such an endearing pup! I’ve seen versions of Olivier on Ravelry where folks knitted him in very dignified all-grays or all-browns. Totally sweet and maybe someday I’ll knit a 3rd Olivier and work him up that way. But I’m feeling very buoyant just now and I wanted a multi-colored Olivier.
Such a fun knit!
The tail is the cutest thing since…sliced bread? A bug’s ear?
I decided I’d show you how Annita Wilschut patterns work up, all in one piece, with no sewing.
I know. A bit scary. If Olivier could speak to you he’d be saying “No, don’t show me that way.” But, pre-stuffing, is a great way to see why Annita Wilschut patterns deserve your full attention, knitters!
Wilschut’s patterns make you smile even before you complete them.
Olivier is demanding I show you him put back together. He’s eagerly awaiting being on display in my new craft room. And, in case you wonder, any visiting children will be welcome to play with him.
