Thursday, June 21, 2007

Walking with Bronto





Specs:
start: June 10, 2007
end: June 21 (embroidering the eyes)
yarn: less than 2 skeins of green acrylic yarn and a bit of the darker green for soles and white and black for claws and eyes
stuffing: more than 1 bag of polyfill. This thing just ate polyfill -- I'd stuff and stuff and it would look all lumpy, I would pull it all out, and then refluff (and do what I think spinners do, I think) and connect more fill with that so that it's one continuous stuffing process and more stuffing would go in. This seemed to do the trick and definitely less lumps.
final size: 27 inches (head to tail), 9 inches (back to feet) and 12 inches (at his widest point)

modifications/comments: Loads! As I said in previous posts, I made Bronto less long, and in the round when I could. These patterns are chock full of errors, but my goodness, it's a darn stuffed toy! I didn't stress, and when numbers didn't match up, I said, oh well.

The seaming of the body was pretty easy, since the body was done in the round. I just had to seam the head gusset and the back of the neck when I was done doing the face. The pain was doing the feet, and 'catching the claws' as you seam...yeah, right. I had crazy Howard Hughes nails on a bronto originally. I had to take it apart and move the claws in (since this is a herbivore) several times until I was happy with them. But once that was done, it was okay. Yes, I know, they're still crazy claws, but what the hey. There were no pointers as to where to place legs on the bronto, so again, I just winged it. It does seem to me that the back legs are way longer than the front legs ---hmm, I hope I didn't skip a line in the pattern that said 'knit 7 rows' or something...

Final thoughts? I did enjoy knitting this guy, and I enjoyed it lots more when I could knit in the round. It's pretty mindless knitting. Would I knit him again? Why yes I would. But this time, I'd do more of him in the round!

The best part? Z loves him. He was very happy to get his bronto.

My only hint to folks contemplating this knit is to make sure you've got a good project bag where all the little fiddly pieces can go in when completed. I used a lovely grocery bag, and I did regret it when I realized I lost a completely knitted foot. Ask z. I was so bummed I almost didn't finish bronto. Apparently, this foot piece jumped from my bag to the clean laundry that had been put away. Whew! Good thing I found it.

3 comments:

chemgrrl said...

He looks FABULOUS! How smart of you to knit him in the round. I wish I had done that, as I'm now in seaming hell. I can see what you mean about the claws. Hmm, maybe I'll leave the claws off of mine. Or maybe I'm just trying get out of knitting all those blasted things. He looks great, though, can't wait to see the next one!

VeganCraftastic said...

That is sooo cute!

Stefaneener said...

He looks so happy out in the world. I'm still amazed that you didn't go crazy from all the little bits.