I tried the Bluebell first which was, for me, the harder of the two that I tried. It was so challenging for me for a number of reasons: 1) It required me to pay a lot of attention - the pattern repeated every 10 lines, but each one of those lines were different and required me to pay attention; 2) I had practiced some of the increase and decrease stitches before but not all of them and I had not had that much practice with yo, k2tog, p2tog, ssk, p2tog tbl and 3) I had not used beads before. Ugh! That’s a lot to take on!
The yarn over was particularly hard for me even though it’s supposed to be the easiest. I understood how to go from knitting to yarn over to knitting. Fine. But for some reason I had to return again and again to knittinghelp.com to watch her do yarn over over and over again each time I did it between purls.
I never really did get a totally handle on the bead1. For the most part, I did get it. You have to pull the bead through and once you knit the row above it you have to be careful that it stays in the right place. However, not all my beads hung on the right side of the fabric exactly how I wanted them to and I kept pulling and tugging at them.
I undid and redid this bracelet so many times that my sister was laughing at me and Z was scared of my cursing. I just couldn’t see the pattern for the first few times I knit it and making a mistake was really, really hard to correct because of all the lace-like increases and decreases.
Then I moved on to Lily of the Valley for my friend, JM. This one was much easier. I think mostly because every other row was all purling.
And then it was time to start Sheldon the Turtle!
I love Sheldon. I was excited to make him for Trysa and the raisin, but when it was finally time I had a problem letting go. I guess I’ll have to make one for Z. I ordered the yarn from KnitPicks as the pattern suggested and was pleasantly surprised at the affordable price, $2.50 a skein!
The beginning was really difficult. It required starting on double pointed kneedles with only 2 stitches on each needle and then knitting each stitch front and back (kfb)—Thanks again knittinghelp.com! The kneedles would move around and I would get confused about which stitch was next and a couple of times I lost all the stitches, they just slipped right off. But I made it.
I finished the body pretty quickly, brought him over to Z’s parents’ house and convinced Z’s mom to embroider eyes on him so that he would be entirely child safe for T & the raisin. She did a great job! He looks so cute!
The shell and the legs were easy. I really liked how the shell came out like something from an old Nintendo game.
Days later, Z & I were watching TV and together and Sheldon’s little body was sitting on the coffee table, and Z said, out of no where, “Kt, are his eyes on the wrong side?” I almost started crying! But there was no going back. What was supposed to be his body is now his head.
As a result, I had to redo his attachment panel (aka sweater, aka diaper) several times. In order to fit it onto Sheldon’s fat, round body instead of a thin, long body I started off with 26 stitches instead of 16 and I don’t know if T will ever get his shell off him again.
Look at that butt! Attaching the shell to Sheldon’s diaper took more time than I thought since I just couldn’t understand how the I-cord attachment was supposed to work.
The directions on knitty.com say this:
CO 4 sts. Slide sts to other end of dpn. Pulling yarn tightly across back of sts on needle, k3, sl 1. Line up shell and attachment panel with WS together, holding attachment panel facing you. Beginning on the top left side of the attachment panel, pick up and knit one stitch through the edges of both pieces held together.
It took me awhile to realize that I should use the needle that was free of stitches to pick up a stitch from the attachment panel and from the shell and to knit it. I thought that picking up stitiches usually meant the kneedle that currently had stitches on it and in the past when I picked up stitches you just leave them there to chill, not actually knit them.
So now Sheldon is out in the world ready to be loved by the raisin and T.
