I am cracking myself up today looking at the pictures I took this morning versus this afternoon since I went and got my nails done in the middle.....which is good, because I typed this 1000 word post out and typepad ate it the first time, so I had to retype the whole flipping thing.
Today I am going to go over a little trick to make the decreases on the neck easy, and a fairly in-depth tutorial of how to turn from knitting the neck to the face. I get questions on this a lot, so this applies on any pattern of mine where you knit a flap/gusset, then pick up sts for a head/foot.
On to the neck! First of all, in any of my patterns where you are starting a stitch mid-round with a new yarn (like on Herman style legs where you have a new beginning of the round after putting the legs on your circular needle) this is how you do it. Basically anywhere you begin to knit but your working yarn is not attached. Hold your new yarn behind the stitch to be knit:
And begin to knit with it as if it were attached:
Also, when I say to knit "across the gap," it means to continue working with the first stitch knit, to begin working in the round (as opposed to back and forth). In this picture, I have knit 1 round and started my second round, see how the yarn stretches from the back needle to the front needle?
And now for a little trick! Round 1 of the neck starts out with (K2tog, K13) twice. Since I am repeating what is in those brackets, I went ahead and K2tog, K13'ed, placed a marker, then K2tog, K13'ed to the end of the round. Then, every time I came to the marker on a decrease round, I knew that was where my repeat would be. Nifty, nifty, huh? I love stitch markers.
I thought I would mention, too, you will want to stuff as you knit on the neck. This is way, way, way easier than trying to go back and stuff once done. After knitting the 3 pattern samples I found the best way to get the neck to stand up on it's own was to super-stuff it. I also found making a solid "base" of stuffing, below the neck in the body, helped Basil to hold his head up once finished. See the lumps in the neck and chest here? Those are my extra stuffing lumps.
Alright, on to the head turn! First, you will knit the first 5 sts of the round, and move them so they are the only sts on your needle:
Then turn your work around and move the last 5 sts of the round onto the same needle. Slip them purlwise, so as not to turn them while transferring:
Move the rest of the sts of your round to a second needle. I will be working only the 10 sts on the front needle here, where my yarn is attached:
Then work the back of the head (/gusset/heel) sts:
See how the yarn is coming from the right side above? For the first round of the head, you are going to start by working these stitches again, like I have here, and the yarn is attached to the other side now:
Now it is time to pick up stitches along the gusset edge. See those lovely "chain" stitches along the edge of the gusset? My needle is pointing at one:
These were created by slipping the first stitch of every row while knitting the gusset flap and will make it very easy to pick up stitches. You are going to make a stitch out of the hole under each chain. Here I am lifting a chain for you can see where your stitch will be created:
Go ahead and put your needle into that hole as if it were a stitch and work it as you normally work a knit stitch*:
Once you run out of chains, you will want to pick up a stitch in the space between the last chain and the first of your held stitches. I am pointing at where I will pick up my stitch here:
Mah-nah! 7 picked up stitches along the edge of the gusset:
Move on and knit half of your held stitches onto the same needles. Then move to a new needle and knit the other half of the held stitches. See that next gusset edge? You are going to do the same thing and pick up 7 more stitches down that edge:
Voila, a new round is created, heading in a different direction than the rest of your knitting.
So there you are, ready to knit you dino face! Your first stitch of the round is the first stitch on the bottom needle in this picture, closest to where my working yarn is attached, and you will knit clockwise when looking at this picture. Be sure to finish stuffing the neck before getting too far on the face knitting, too. It will amke life much easier.
If you are feeling a little confused, the "point" my dpns are making here point towards the bronty-body. You are looking at the head upside down, the first stitch of the round is in the side of the top of the head.
Make sense?
*Alternately, you can "twist" these sts (knit in the back loop) as you pick up to eliminate the hole that picking up stitches like this can sometimes create. This is normally how I do this, but I didn't for this demonstration.
I am going to have to skip my KAL post for tomorrow since I will be at Martingale (my publisher) for a photoshoot for my next book all day! It is due out this November, since I know you were wondering. I will do a KAL post Saturday to make up for tomorrow though, so make sure to tune in then!
Be sure to leave me your questions and links to your Basil progress in the comments here!
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