Poloneck Poncho

I am very lazy when it comes to knitting and so far have avoided knitting anything large; but as it is winter I decided to make a poncho. A searched carefully to find a poncho that I liked the look of, and had a straight forward pattern. I found this great free pattern: Knit a poloneck poncho

I made the entire thing using my size 5.5 100mm circular needles, and this worked fine for me. I also used an acrylic yarn instead of wool because I didn't want to spend too much. 

I already had two balls of grey yarn, so went to the store to buy more for this project, but didn't realise until a few rows into my third ball that there was a slight colour difference in the yarn I had bought (oops!) but I think it looks quite cool and deliberate (I hope).

The pattern was really straight forward to follow, and you just have to knit in the round and increase stitches in each alternate row.

The most tedious part of the project was the tassles, as you have to cut hundreds of lengths of yarn to 40cm, then thread 4 at a time in each stitch, and I managed to do this over a few evenings. The entire project took me about 4 weeks, although I could have done it in 2-3 weeks if I had needed to.

To finish I made the whole thing wet then stretched it and hung it to dry.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

For a 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' themed first birthday I decided to knit my own version of the caterpillar. 

For each part of the body I used two shades of yarn; one bright green, and a second of anothercolour (light green, light blue, cream and grey) to try and create the multiple shades of the caterpillar body. For the head I used one strand of thicker multi-coloured red-ish yarn.

I used the following pattern to knit the balls, stuffed them with polyester filling, then attached them together:

Abbreviations:  CO=Cast On, K=Knit, Inc1=Increase one stitch to two stitches, Rep *=Repeat instructions in between **, K2tog=Knit two together

Size 6 needles (4.25mm)

CO6
Row1: *K1, Inc 1* Rep * to end (9 Sts)

Row 2: *K2, Inc1* Rep * to end (12 Sts)

Row 3: Rep Row 1 (18 Sts)

Row 4: Rep Row 2 (24 Sts)

Row 5 - 17: Knit Garter Stitch for 13 Rows

Row 18: *K2, K2tog* Rep * to end (18 Sts)

Row 19: *K1, K2tog* Rep * to end (12 Sts)

Row 20: Rep Row 18 (9 Sts)

Row 21: Rep Ro 19 (6 Sts)

Cut the thread 5inches long, thread end through last 6 Sts and pull tight. Join edge down the back, put polyester filling inside, then draw up open end and bind off.

To do the caterpillar face and antenna I just experimented with some left over yarn; for the face I knitted two small white ovals, and stitched them on using green yarn. For the Antenna I cast on 5 stitches, knitted one row, then k2tog on the first and last stitch (leaving 3 stitches) and continues knitting 3 stitches until I was happy with the length, then I sewed down the long edge and stuffed it.