This is an intermediate-level knitting pattern for everyone to enjoy. Please check out the Mochimochi Shop for more patterns that you’ll love!
A quick handmade Hanukkah gift, this knitted dreidel actually works!
Techniques included I-cord and knitting in the round on double-pointed needles. Fingering-weight yarn is recommended, but sport and worsted weight yarn should also work great—use needle size that’s 3-4 sizes down from the general recommendation for the yarn you’re using.
Make your Ms. Claus even merrier!
Make a leg by casting on 4 stitches and knitting 2 rows of I-cord. Break the yarn and make another leg, without breaking the yarn this time. Join the legs by knitting them together into a round. (This is the same way you start the tiny santa pattern.)
Increase to 16 stitches in the next round, then 24 stitches in the following round. Then work the pattern as originally written starting with Round 3, using only the skin color yarn, and changing all purl stitches to knit stitches.
Naked Ms. Claus will turn out a bit bigger than a clothed version. If you want them the same size, you can skip a couple of knit rounds in her lower half. Embroider a butt crack and a belly button with black, pulling the stitches tightly for body contours.
Don’t forget her modesty apron!
Today (Wednesday 12/18) is the day to order physical stuff from my shop for delivery by Christmas! Use Priority shipping in the US to guarantee it.
🎄📦🎄📦🎄📦🎄
Of course, PDF patterns are always instant, printable downloads and make awesome gifts too!
All orders placed 12/21-12/29 will be shipped by 1/3.
For those who can’t knit their own, I’m giving away FOUR Teeny-Tiny Mochimochi Ms. Clauses knit by me!
Four of them because they’re family: mother, daughter, cousin, and an aunt who lives a “clothes optional” lifestyle.
To enter to win one of these holiday heroines, please write a charming Ms. Claus-themed poem in the comments to this post on Instagram. I’ll choose my four favorites on Monday 12/16!
Happy news: the Teeny-Tiny Mochimochi Sugarplum Fairies Pattern is now a kit! It comes with enough fingering-weight yarn to make two sugarplum fairies in opposite plummy colors. And it’s on sale for 25% off through December 24th!
UPDATE: I’m extending this sale through Monday December 2!
This flirty turkey has some pre-Thanksgiving discounts on holiday patterns for you!
All of these are now marked down through Black Friday in the Mochimochi Shop—no code required:
🦃 Tiny Thanksgiving
🐻 Bundle-up Bears
🎄 Generosi-trees
👨🏻 Deck the Walruses
❄️ Special Little Snowflakes
🦌 Teeter-Totter Reindeer
If you can read turkey lips, you’ll know that they’re saying a big THANK YOU for being part of Mochimochi Land with your knitting, your sharing, your follows, and your giggles.
Sometimes a knitter goes so above and beyond with a project, they deserve to be called a hero. Keitha Brannick certainly earns the distinction with this colorful colony of Boos! Then she went REALLY big and knitted an enormous Boo for her front door to delight the neighborhood with. He’s a full 15″ tall with a 29″ wingspan! She had some yarn left over, so she also improvised a giant purple spider, as you do.
I asked Keitha if she would share a bit about how she made her big Boo. Here’s what she had to say:
It was very easy to scale him up. I didn’t have a specific size in mind, just big. I found a bulky yarn that called for size 15 needles. It took three 3.5oz/43 yd skeins with just a little left over yarn. I followed your pattern except that I knit him flat, since I didn’t have size 15 double points, and mattress stitched the pieces together. I sewed the legs into the body as I stitched the body closed.
I wanted a bright surprise when his wings opened so I knit 2 sets of the modified wings, one navy and one purple. I couldn’t find a bulky yarn in the bright purple so I used 4 strands of worsted weight acrylic yarn with the size 15 needles. The smaller yarn made the purple wings slightly smaller than the navy bulky which made a nice edging around the inner wings when I stitched them together. When Big Boo is hanging by his feet his wings drooped so I used thin craft wire to keep them spread out. I bent the wire to follow the curves on the bottom of the wings (which is on top when Boo is up-side-down), and slipped it through the stitches where the curves change direction.
I knit his fangs out of shiny white yarn I had from other projects and stitched them on. I found large crystals meant for jewelry that sparkled purple and white to use for his eyes. I sewed buttons where I wanted the eyes and glued the crystals to the buttons. I was afraid the crystals wouldn’t hold well glued to the yarn but with the right glue they might have been fine. Boo won’t be used as a toy so it’s not as critical to watch all his parts!
Thank you, Keitha, for sharing all about your process!
If you’re inspired to emulate Keitha’s creative genius, you may want to get started now: find the Boo pattern in my shop and on Ravelry. And of course, Keitha gets a $25 credit to the Mochimochi Shop for her brilliance! (Keep tagging your projects with #mochimochiland and the same could happen to you!)
Happy Halloween to all the creepy cats!
