You might remember these two little dragons I knitted. The one on the left (Cedric) sits on the bookshelf in my office and the one on the right has gone on to live on a different bookshelf. I started to knit a few more.
The pattern is Tarragon, a free download. (That’s the Ravelry link.) There are a lot of projects on Ravelry with additions and changes to the pattern – I’ve added ears as in one of those projects. I knit mine with a strand of fingering weight or sock yarn – in this case, it’s Koigu KPPPM – held double with a strande of KSH or similar. This time, it’s Elann Silken Kydd.
Here’s the new dragon on the block:
This time, instead of knitting four wings and sewing them together in pairs, I knit the green wings, then picked up the stitches for the yellow “lining”. The wings are knit from the outer edge in, and this saved some sewing. I think outer edge looks neater too.
If you haven’t yet discovered the stop-motion videos by India Rose Crawford of her knitted frog and toad, then you’re in for a treat. In addition to her knitted frog and toad, she creates miniature rooms and accessories for them, and scripts lovely videos. You can find her on Instagram, right here.
You can also find the pattern to make a frog of your own on Ravelry, right here.
I’ve had this pattern in my favorites for ages, but at the end of September, I finally bought it and cast on. My frog – probably the first of several – is knit from stash leftovers. The green is Jody Long Alba in Moss (left over from my Quintessential Cardigan) held with Kidsilk Haze in Jelly. The white is Jamieson & Smith 2ply (left over from Harriet’s Hat) held with Sugar Bush Drizzle in Icicle.
Here’s the back and all four yarns:
I used 2.5mm needles for this, even though the pattern recommends larger ones. That’s the size I used for Tarragon the dragon, which was knit of a DK yarn and KSH held together as well, and I liked the firm fabric that resulted. Maybe my frog is a little smaller as a result.
The pattern is pretty easy to follow, especially if you’ve knit toys before. She must have knit on straight needles as there’s a lot of intructions for moving stitches from one needle to the other for the i-cord bits – with dpns, you just have to move the needle to your other hand.
Here it is, mostly done. He needs another leg here:
I found cat eyes at the fabric store, which have an elongated pupil but not a pointy one like the dragon eyes. They are 12mm.
I think I did something wrong, as he has two feet that seem to be the wrong way around. I can twist them into place, though, so will just pay more attention next time.
I knit the sweater on 3mm needles, using KnitPicks Palette in two colours from the stash. The cast-on edge at the neck is a tiny bit tight, but it looks tight in her pix, too. I used a long tail cast-on, so will try a stretchier one next time.
The chair is in 1:6 scale and worked out perfectly for him.
Oops. I think there’s a fly on that plant…
I see that there’s an addendum with wire included in the legs, and also another pattern for both frog and toad, along with some garments. I’ll make Froggie a friend first.
Juniper Moose is an adorable stuffed moose, and the pattern is free right now from Knitpicks. (Here’s the link.) That’s the official image from Knitpicks at right. Isn’t the moose cute? It was designed by Rachel Borello Carroll – here’s her Ravelry page showing all her patterns and here’s her website. There are a lot of cute stuffies: I’m looking at her hedgehog pattern as well.
Because everyone needs a stuffed moose for the holidays, I dug into my stash and cast on. I had some Sirdar Tweedie Chunky in brown and beige, which apparently had been waiting for this project. The yarn is discontinued, so here’s a Ravelry link. A tweed moose seemed ideal to me.
I did drop down a needle size, and worked with 5mm needles. That seemed a better match with the yarn, and I prefer to have a denser fabric with toys so the white stuffing doesn’t show through. (If I knit it again, I might go down to 4mm, because the stuffing does show through a bit, esp in the rivers between my DPNs.) I also decided to use buttons for eyes, instead of the safety eyes recommended, as no children will be playing with my moose.
The pattern is really well written and quite easy. Of course, there are many pieces – that’s the way of it with knitted toys. Here are all the moose pieces:
I decided against the wreath and just gave him a ribbon. Here’s my assembled moose:
I made one modification: Juniper Moose has no tail, but of course, real moose do. I joined the main colour yarn where the base of his tail should be and worked an inch of I-cord before binding off.
I think he needs a pompom nose, but I don’t have one. We’ve entered lockdown so it will have to wait. He is cute, though, don’t you think?
I knit this dragon out of Noro Kureyon Sock from my stash. It used about half a skein. I’m not actually sure what to do with it now that it’s done, but when I saw the pattern, I just had to cast on. The pattern is called Doughty Dragon and it’s a free Ravelry download. (That’s a Ravelry link.)
Above, he is clearly as outraged as I am that some squirrel has sampled my pumpkin two weeks before Halloween.
Here, he looks like he’s going to eat something off the steps. (Bad dragon!)
I seriously lost my enthusiasm after making the body of the dragon – I think the toes nearly finished me – so he’s been waiting headless for me to get back to him. This summer, I made his head, then he waited in two parts – because I didn’t enjoy making the teeth and still think I did them wrong – until about two weeks ago. I was trying to clean up my office, and there he was, on the floor, in parts. How sad. I picked up my needles and worked away on those back scales – which I also did wrong. There’s supposed to be two rows, and you’re supposed to pick up every second stitch on the back as you go – alternating would be a good idea – but I misread it and picked up every stitch. Rather than frog back, I just kept going but only did a single row of scales.
Trust me. By then I was done with this project. It was fiddly knitting and slow going.
I think his back scales look good, even if they are wrong!
Making this dragon took even longer than I thought: when I went back into Ravelry to mark my project done, I saw that I’d cast on in July 2015. More than three years to completion! Ha. I won’t be making another one of these.
Although he is kind of cute, isn’t he? I have to find him a perch in my office.
A few weeks back, I started to knit a dragon. The pattern is called Doughty Dragon and it’s knit of Noro Kureyon Sock. I happened to have a ball of that in my stash, in a dark colourway (#233 – it’s the 10th one on the page linked above) that I thought particularly suitable for a dragon. This pattern is knit in pieces and then assembled. The dragon bits are stuffed as they’re seamed, and have pipe cleaners in them to give a bit of structure to the figure. Here are the dragon bits, so far:I took this outside, and the tree is casting some interesting shadows.
The instructions in this pattern are excellent. It’s fiddly work, but very clearly described. This, however, is not a project for anyone who dislikes grafting! I find I’m working on it in spurts and stops. The problem with the dark choice of yarn is that it’s a bit tougher to see what I’m doing when picking up stitches and grafting, especially at night. I’ve also done a lot of winding back and forth in the ball of Kureyon Sock, trying to ensure that his left and right sides match.
He needs a head, back scales, head scales and his wings sewn on. I need to go digging for some red yarn (for the inside of his mouth) and some white (for his teeth). I’m quite happy with this project so far. I have a ball of Noro Silk Garden Sock (same gauge, less yardage) in a flashier colourway (#315 – it’s discontinued and isn’t displayed on the linked page), but we’ll have to see whether the Dark Dragon gets a Bright Brother or not.
What do you think?
Have you ever knit a dragon? A knitted toy or sculpture?
A while back, I wrote about Norah Gaughan’s knitted beet. Many of you will have seen the writing on the wall with that post, and will have guessed this would happen sooner or later. I had to knit the beet, for no other reason than that I like it. (In fact, I would have knit it sooner, if the pattern had been available for purchase as a downloadable .pdf. As it was, I had to find the booklet at a LYS.)
Here it is:
I dipped into the stash to knit this. My beet is knit in KnitPicks Palette (the bright pink, held double), KnitPicks Wool of the Andes (the purple) and two shades of green of Patons Classic Wool. I used black pipe cleaners and they do peek through the gaps a bit, but I think they look better than white ones would have (the other choice.) My Ravelry project page is here.
I had thought I’d make three, maybe tie them in a bunch, but it’s much larger than anticipated. One is enough! Right now, it’s in the kitchen, although I’ve no idea where it will end up. It was a fun and quick knit. I fulled it a bit – a nice hot soak – to soften the look of the leaves and disguise the white of the polyester stuffing a bit more. I also put pipecleaners in the stems of the leaves as they were really floppy.
I’m really happy with it, although it is a bit of a silly thing.
Here, he looks like he’s going to eat something off the steps. (Bad dragon!)
Alive & Knitting 