Penelope The Empathetic Monster

Seamless...

I have been wanting to try one of Rebecca Danger's monster knitting patterns for a while. I was finally seduced by a PDF from her Etsy Shop of the delightful Penelope The Empathetic Monster. The slight snag was that I knew the pattern involved being able to knit in the round using magic loop on circular needles and three needle bind off, neither of which I knew how to do.

So, I headed to that font of all knowledge, YouTube and watched this video on magic loop and this one on three needle bind off about 20 times. For once, I decided to practice on something before heading into my big project. I proceeded to make a version of the gadget case in June 2011's issue of  Knit Today magazine. I made it a little bigger than the magazine project and minus the beads using the leftover Rowan Handknit Cotton from my cupcake purse from the same issue.

A little while ago I bought a beautiful set of Knit Pro interchangeable rosewood circular needles and I used the 4mm needles with the longest cable to make the gadget case  in the round using magic loop and I cast off using thee needle bind off (should really be four needle bind off as you need another needle to pass one stitch over the other on the third needle). It worked pretty well apart from a slight ladder on one side at the top before I got used to doing the first couple of stitches on each row really tight. I finished the case off with a lilac spotty button and a little crown embellishment.

Right, back to Penelope. I was so keen to start her, that I had to get the wool from my local market. I decided to work with chunky - the pattern allows for any wool weight with needles 2-3 times smaller than the norm you would use with that yarn. I ended up with some Sirdar Click Chunky in pink and a speckly green, which at 30% wool barely passes my wool snob test, but I think it looks okay. The yarn recommends 6.5mm needles so I settled on 5mm, again with the largest cable.

I made Penelope's body and all her extremities using magic loop. The only thing I couldn't manage was to make the rectangular base piece flat and then cast on all the extra stitches for the body in the round. I ended up knitting the base separately and stitching it to the body afterwards. The eye patch was a bit of a challenge, starting with only four stitches, but I'm pretty pleased with the result. I found the three needle bind off slightly fiddly on the ears and legs, but finally got it on the last leg.

I used safety eyes to complete Penelope's face and hand cut her mouth from white felt and glued it on. Obviously the techniques Rebecca uses minimises the sewing up anyway, but I finished up the ears, arms and legs with mattress stitch and attached them to the body.

As a finishing touch, Rebecca recommends tying a bow around Penelope's ear, which I just love.

I'm so pleased that I took the time to learn the new techniques to make this pattern. Not only do I love Penelope, but it's set me up to make loads of things I wouldn't have been able to do before. I've just bought Rebecca's Napoleon the Nervous Narwhal pattern, which I'm very much looking forward to trying.

Melx