New Project

The next project is inspired by a design in Knitted Toy Tales, by Laura Long. If you go to that link, look inside the book and search on Pussycat (of the Owl and the Pussycat), then you'll see the design.

I was able to find a picture on Flickr as well of someone's knitted version of the pussycat.

As you see, it couldn't be simpler. But I also had in mind the canopic jars of Ancient Egypt.

So in essence, I want a knitted jar shape with an animal head, but I want it to look very much like folk art, all colorful.

I'm using the leftover colors from the last afghan, Under the Sea, and I decided on an elephant head for the top of the jar, using the pattern from the same Knitted Toy Tales book. For the jar shape, I am improvising my own pattern.

Here is the bottom.

That's my needle gauge, which is about 5 1/2 inches long, to show size.

All I did was cast on 8 stitches, and then increase in each stitch, and then increase into the original stitch again on every other row, so that 8 stitches get added on each increase row. I used two circular needles, which is my current preference over double points for knitting in the round.

When I felt like it was large enough, I stopped increasing and began to knit in more colors, varying the stitch patterns as I liked. I tried not to finish on the same stitch that I stated from, to keep from having a visible seam.

Here's a closer look.

And here's how it looks from the top.

This is making a nice change of pace. However, since I want to stuff the final product, I'm knitting at a tight gauge, which is a bit wearing on the hands.