Sunday, November 17, 2013

Hungry Caterpillar Cocoon (Part 1)


I have been blessed with the random acts of kindness of strangers.  Since the Ravelry community learned that I'm expecting my first child, I have received multiple RAK gifts of baby patterns on my wish list.  I was thrilled to receive the Hungry Caterpillar Baby Cocoon and Hat Pattern set by Angie Hartley.  Today I am going to talk about the construction of the cocoon itself, in the next post you can read about the coordinating hat.

I knit this cocoon on size 13 (9 mm) knitting needles with KnitPicks Brava worsted held double.  The pattern instructions do not name the colors C1-C4, only by descriptions like "vivid green" and "dark teal".  This is hard to keep straight when my colors are slightly different.  Therefore, I named each color C1-C4 and took the following picture to help keep things straight.  I added instructions for C1-C4 to the pattern page.  (Colors are named based on order of appearance and closeness to the colors in the original cocoon.)

C1 - Solstice Heather (dark blue - 132 yards), C2 - Peapod (bright green - 88 yards), C3 - Tidepool (teal - 95 yards), C4 - Hunter (hunter green - 51 yards)

For some striped projects I find it easier to carry up the strands up the side of the project, but with 4 colors I'd rather knot and then weave in some loose ends.  (Or, ultimately with this project a few loose ends won't hurt anything since it is mainly a photo prop.)  


Notes from Construction:
  • 10 rounds of C1 after cast on made the ~3 inches.
  • I followed the colored striping patterns as written.
  • After I hit 21 stitches, it began to get difficult to knit.  Unfortunately I don't have size 13 DPN's and the cable for this particular set of needles isn't very flexible.  I have to order a set of size 13 harmony tips for my KnitPicks interchangeables set soon!  I was able to wing it by knitting half of the round onto straight needles and then transferring back to the circular as needed.  


This cocoon is very cute!  The final piece measures 8.5"x 17" (excluding rolled brim), and may be a little big for a newborn but I would prefer to have it be too big than too small.  Worst case scenario we can pin the back a bit for the photo shoot.