December Monster of the Month

 

December Monster of the Month

This monster comes to you courtesy of my four-year-old granddaughter Lyra, who drew me a picture of a monster back in November. Since it was just before Thanksgiving, she drew me a “Pumpkin Monster”.

When we were at her house for Christmas, I started work on designing the monster.

When I said I needed to make the nose, she said she wanted me to use gold pony beads for the nose.

I tried putting them on the snout, but they looked more like eyes than nostrils, I added a smile at the bottom, and version 1.0 ended up with a turtle-type face.

I used a worsted weight yarn and size F (3.75 mm) hook.

I used less than an ounce of each color.

The body is worked as a rectangle shape, then sewn together at the short end and gathered at the long ends.

Start with chain 21 with color 1. Starting with the second chain from the hook:

Row 1 (and every row): sl st 4, sc 4, hdc 4, sc 4, sl st 4, ch 1, turn. (20)

Keep your slip stitches loose, so you can work in them more easily. Short version of the pattern: work 4 rows of each color until you have four wedges of each color. Change color with your turning chain.

Row 2-4: Color 1

Row 5-8: Color 2

Row 9-12: Color 1

Rows 13-16: Color 2

Rows 17-20: Color 1

Rows 21-24: Color 2

Rows 25-28: Color 1. At the end of row 28, finish off color 1, leaving a long tail to gather that end.

Rows 29-32: Color 2. Finish off, leaving a long tail to sew seam and gather other end.

Snout: (I used one of my colors for the snout and the other for the stem – but it’s your monster… you can do whatever you’d like!) I have included two options for row 3, to make a plain snout, or to make the pony bead version.

R1: 5 sc in MR (5)

R2: inc x 5 (10)

R3: sc BLO (10)

R3 pony bead version: BLO sc 4, pull yarn through bead, sc 2, pull yarn through bead, sc 4

R4: sc (10)

Finish off, leaving a tail to sew to face. If you did the pony bead “eyes”, embroider a smile along the loops of round 3.

Fold in half with the right sides together and sew the curved ends together. Use yarn end to gather the ends of your slip stitch rows together. Turn right side out. Sew snout over the hdc stitches on the center front of the monster. If you did the plain snout, add safety eyes 2 stitches over the snout, with 2-3 stitches between. Embroider nostrils on snout.

Stuff well and use the other yarn end to gather up the slip stitch edges. Weave in your yarn end.

Stem: with color of your choice

R1: 4 sc in MR (4)

R2: inc x 4 (8)

R3: BLO sc (8)

R4-5: sc (8)

Finish off, leaving a tail to sew to top of monster, over the gathered stitches.

Thank you to Strawberry Bonnie for testing the pattern for me. She used worsted weight yarn and 10 mm safety eyes.