Sunday, December 26, 2010

I am the Batman!

Sheldon was one of the first toys that I ever knit. This pattern was also my first experience with knitpicks yarn, and I have to say I've been addicted ever since.

Knitpicks offers many sheldon costumes, so you can swap out the turtle shell and turn him into a super hero, pirate (coming soon), bee, sheep and more. I have selected the pirate costume to make for Keith's stuffed turtle. When The Dark Knight was new, Keith had a lot of fun sneaking up on people and saying in a harsh voice, "I am the Batman!"

In my latest huge knitpicks stock up, I ordered one ball of Bison Shine Sport to create this costume. But then there was a problem: Knitpicks.com indicated that this pattern will take 2 balls of shine sport... Thankfully I found a user on ravelry who indicated that the pattern only took 70% of one skein. I even sent the user a message to make sure that wasn't a typo (that she hadn't meant 1.7 balls). It looked like I would be okay with the amount of yarn I had.

I followed the pattern as directed, using the yarn (although a different color, since Fedora was not available).


The back legs get tucked back around the body.

I knit the wings before the arms because I was still concerned that I would run out of yarn. I figured, if I ended up with a second dye lot, the arms would be mostly hidden so it wouldn't matter. (This ended up not being a problem.) The pattern only showed pictures of the finished product, so I took a lot of pictures during the construction process.


The "sweater" size compared to Sheldon's body.


The finished wings and body (minus arms)



I liked picking up the stitches for the armholes rather than knitting arms and sewing them on. (Of course, you cannot really sew on sweater arms without there being a hole for the arms!)


The completed arms.


Keith is going to have to choose. Does he want Sheldon to be a turtle, bat or a pirate?


Sheldon as a turtle vs. a bat. Which do you prefer?

With the extra yarn, should I might try to make a batman mask. What do you think?


The remaining yarn and bat costume. I think the project took less than 1 ball!