Arpeggio Yamosaurus the Stegosaurus is marked and (almost) ready to demonstrate leg placement My herbivores are all marked with yarn and ready to be temporarily disassembled in the interest of better pattern instructions. I forgot, when I first wrote ...
Pandapalooza!
Rusty the red panda beanie baby watches over the little red and giant pandas. It's another free pattern based on toys from Rebecca Danger's 50 Yards of Fun. These little guys were made for the Boston area NaNoWriMo group. NaNoWriMo (aka National No ...
I Blame Hansi Singh OR Why I Knit Toys
Hansi Singh's "Amigurumi Knits" - The book that started it all About eight years ago, I found the book "Amigurumi Knits" by Hansi Singh. Singh's tagline for her work was "knitting the peculiar" and this book lived up to it - black devil anglerfish, pr ...
Math is my Friend
A view of my kitchen table as the triceratopses help me revise patterns. I'm going into the third day of revising my existing patterns to change the short row technique I use (see last week's post, Short Row Knitting and Dinosaur Knees). It has given ...
I Blame Ruffles OR Why I Make Dinosaurs
The Triceratones: Ruffles (center), Flourishes (left) and Timpani (right) In my world, toy triceratopses are herd animals. It started with Ruffles, who was a birthday present from my friend Scott over a decade ago. I soon realized I had another tri ...
The Emergency Teddy Bear
Emergency Teddy Bear is ready for his closeup. Today's free pattern was originally made as a baby shower gift. He's called the Emergency Teddy Bear because I found out on a Wednesday evening about a surprise baby shower three days later on Saturday ...
How an Idea Becomes a Pattern
Emergency Teddy Bear's pattern notes - written and rewritten How do you get a pattern? Revise, revise, revise! Here's the notes from a quick teddy bear pattern I worked up a few weeks ago. In this case, I used my existing Sitting Dragon pattern as ...
Decisions, Decisions: Knitting Flat vs. Knitting in the Round
Alan Dart's Green Man pattern is designed to be knitted flat, but I made him anyway. One of the first decisions to make when designing a knitted toy is whether it will be knitted as flat pieces that will be seamed together at the end, or whether it wi ...
Short Row Knitting and Dinosaur Knees
Symphony the Apatosaurus shows off his short row knitted neck curve and dimpled knees I use a lot of short row knitting for my dinosaurs. They need curved necks and tails, head crests, neck frills and cute little dimpled knees. Short row knitting allo ...
Size Matters: Choosing a Yarn Weight for Your Toys
Sitting Dragon made in two weights of yarn I deliberately don't specify a yarn weight to use for my knitted toys because I want knitters to choose based on the desired size for their finished toys. I provide approximate finished dimensions for version ...