Fairy tale knitting: snakes and foxes

I love knitting for my nephews, as I can go crazy and pick really fun patterns for them. This year I went for scarves to keep their little necks warm (for when it actually gets cold in Greece), focusing on an animal theme.

The first one is the Wiggly Worm scarf, which can be modified to make a snake instead (and let's face it, a snake scarf is way cooler than a worm scarf). This is a very simple thin scarf, intentionally knit in stockinette to make it curl in itself, and with some increases and decreases for shaping. I had to improvise the tongue, and there is no way I can remember exactly what I did other than I used crochet.

 

I'd like to think of this as a psychedelic snake (I do realise that blue is not exactly the most snake-like colour) that is either rather startled or wears glasses - must be the clear buttons! Either way, I think he is rather cute, surprisingly for a snake.

The second is one that I have wanted to make for ages but couldn't justify to make for myself: Mr Fox, by tiny owl knits (from the same book as my lovely fingerless gloves, catching butterflies). This little guy is more of a neck warmer I guess than a long scarf, with the body and tail knit in one piece, the legs added directly to the main body, and the head knit separately, stuffed and then sewn onto the main body.

It was pretty straightforward as a pattern until right at the end, when I couldn't really understand how to attach the head to main body, and I'm still not entirely sure I did it right (a bit more explanation would have been helpful, unless my cold is also making me a bit stupid). I think I could have done a better job, as he looks a bit of a hunchback now.


He is still insanely cute, though, despite his defects (I especially love his white paws and edge of tail).


Both scarves were made using Red Heart Solid, the aran weight for Mr Snake and the 4-ply for Mr Fox. The pattern for Mr Fox offers two options, one for a bigger and chunkier scarf and one knit in 4-ply that is meant to be worn as a stole. I decided to go somewhere in between and use the 4-ply held double (which apparently would give a DK weight yarn) and 5mm needles. If I were to make it again (for myself perhaps?) I would probably go for the bigger fox and hope that I don't look like a crazy lady!

Barter economy with an old favourite, Fetching

I got a knitting commission! Well, actually this is not my first, but it's the first that I actually completed in exchange for something. I call this 'barter economy' because the exchange was with my yoga teacher, and she is paying me in classes :).

Her request was simple: fingerless gloves, in bright pink (thankfully still have lots of the pink Manos yarn), with minimum finger coverage. I personally am not a big fan of the non-thumbed fingerless gloves, so I wasn't really aware of any nice ones that were constructed in the round and did not have a thumb (and as you know, I tend to avoid seams in knitting, so did not want to knit them flat). By browsing trusty Ravelry, I came a cross a few patterns that constructed a thumbhole by including a few rows of knitting back and forth, and so I decided to use that logic to modify an old favourite, Fetching.

At the time of writing, Fetching had 20,314 projects on Ravelry! There's a reason it's so popular: the pattern is well-written, the gloves are simple and fast to knit, yet still look impressive because of the cables, and unless modified to be longer, they use very little yarn. I myself have made them twice already, and have also knitted the popular Fetching-inspired Owlings a couple of times. The benefit of this is that I know that 45 stitches it far too many (especially because they stretch a lot - although now I realise that in the past I cast on 40 stitches but this time I did 35... they still fit though).

Here is what I did to omit the thumb:

- On row 12, start working straight, knitting back and forth. This means that on WS rows you need to purl the knits and knit the purls (ie purl 4, knit 1).
- Continue like this up to the row where the thumb opening is made.
- Knit 1 more row straight in rib pattern, then join back in the round and continue as in original pattern.

One other modification was to omit the first cable in the pattern, but this was mainly because I had started making a different pair of gloves which I didn't like, and didn't want to rip all the way to the start.