Little Monster

When I headed down south for Sport Relief I wanted to have some knitting for the long train journey, so I decided to try out my new (at the time) KnitPro needles and made a simple monster from The Big Book of Knitted Monsters by Rebecca Danger.

Well, a combination of factors (like OU assignments, the desire to write more of Behind the Scenes, lovely weather, the books I was reading) all stopped me from getting on with it quickly. I kind of felt like I was losing my knitting mojo and so focused on other, non-knitting, projects.

Over Easter I got a bit of that mojo back and completed two arms and a leg in a matter of days. Seeing that the end was in sight, after our trip to Oban, I sat down, finished off the last leg (literally and figuratively) and put the whole thing together.

And here he is:

The pattern is for Petunia but I think this little guy is definitely a fellow. It's all the blue. I picked up some googly eyes when we were in Hobbycraft a couple of months back and they really add something to him. They were a bit tricky to get sewn on, the opening on the back was too thin for regular yarn but sewing thread wasn't secure enough. I ended up unplying some of the yarn I'd knitted him with and fixing them on like that, which worked but was frustrating because it tended to break if I pulled too hard. Hopefully they'll both stay in place.

The mouth is just roughly embroidered on. It's not great but I think it adds to his character. I think he looks happy. I love the little belly button. Rebecca Danger talks about being a sculptor whose medium is fluff and she's right. There's no shaping on the tummy, it's done purely by putting the stuffing in the right place. I'm really pleased with how that turned out and I like the end result.

The pattern as a whole was okay for a piece to knit while travelling, but once home it was a bit monotonous. It's knit in the round so you're just doing knit stitches, with occasional decreases towards the end. The arms and legs have a bit more variety but once I'd done one I couldn't quite summon up the motivation to do more. He nearly ended up being one-armed and one-legged!

I am glad that I finished him though and the variegated yarn was definitely the right choice because it was fun to see how it was going to turn out. He's got these fantastic stripes that spiral up his body and get thicker and thinner in predictable ways.

I think that the Petunia pattern was a good choice to get to grips with these monster patterns and I'm definitely going to go back and have another attempt at the Candy the Nightmare Monster pattern I was trying to do before my Denise needles gave up the ghost on me. This pattern was lovely and simple and I think that for someone who's not familiar with the Magic Loop technique would find it a good first monster to knit.

I've already got my next two or three monsters lined up.