Saturday 31 July 2010

Sock Dragon

Here is the Sock Dragon. La Tanguerita and Pip both guessed right in the previous post.
You instantiate a Sock Dragon by knitting out of sock wool. It doesn't eat any extra socks for being instantiated.

The wings are slightly stiffened with a nylon-coated steel twist - it's soft, you can sew with it, but it gives them just a little bit of shape. The eyes - last, as always - are made with small red beads and gold sequins.

It has two rear feet like this with four front toes and a backward-pointing toe. They are made as bobbles. The leg is knitted like a toe-up sock with bobbles.

I considered knitting the spines along his back but I haven't done that kind of edging before, and it also seems a bit floppier and more difficult than the crochet alternative.

I have no memory right now of how I did these, it seemed obvious at the time, but essentially there's a row of dc along his back in the purl gully between two mirrored 6x6 cables.

That's followed by two layers. I've done a few ch and some stitches of progressive height, then covered them over with long-legged dc, but I've completely forgotten what the logic was. Not at my most stellar today.

10 comments:

ghost said...

"It doesn't eat any extra socks for being instantiated"

Hmm I reckon late at night when you're out dancing it goes prowling through London eating people's left socks and causing them to wonder where on earth they've gone in the morning....

msHedgehog said...

My point is, it would do that anyway. There is no net increase. You'll notice, however, that it's quite small (knitting anything big in sock wool is too tedious), so one at a time is always enough.

Bibi said...

So lovely!!!

francoise_hardy said...

The spines are superb. However, I still love the bobbly feet best. Ingenious.

Cie said...

^ WSS. The feet are marvellous.
But the whole beastie is a triumph.

Missing you.

msHedgehog said...

@Cie, I miss you too. Romney (is that you, Romney?) has just fed me a brilliant idea for the next animal in my queue, destined for the next one in yours. I'll email you xoxox

Anonymous said...

so very clever to make this up. I admire people who devise patterns that I just follow. Love it all

nina57 said...

can we download this pattern somewhere after paying for it?

msHedgehog said...

@nina57 - I'm sorry, I didn't write it down at all - I could probably reconstruct it, more or less. I do remember that I worked nose to tail, leaving a purl gully between two mirrored cables for the spine. The nostrils (and toes) are bobbles, and the bulges behind the eyes are cables too. Otherwise it's nothing more than shaping symmetrically, every other row until each bit is the right size. All traditional elements, made the same way as they would be in any aran sweater. The wings look complicated, but they're not - I started off small and I'd have to look at it again to see how often I increased, but I think again just every other row in each segment. I used a fancy cast-off for the edges, then sewed on legs and wings.

Anonymous said...

to my knowledge Harold (for this is the name of the sock dragon) has eaten no socks to date. Other dragon instantiations are always welcome and much valued, but do you think the next instantiation could help with the washing up?