Friday, July 08, 2011

The Very Hungry Caterpillar - in jumper form

After all of those birthday shrugs I was glad to knit something different.
This project has been in my head for a long time, and I am so glad I finally got to knit it for my own little boy. I present "The Very Hungry Caterpillar Jumper".

I was inspired at first by this cardigan on Ravelry (and I later on found this fab cardigan too) but also by the most perfect Very Hungry Caterpillar coloured yarn - Dream in Color Classy in Happy Forest. This is the yarn I knit my Vine Yoke cardigan from, and I had a spare skein which I had been saving for this imaginery jumper.

I started with a jumper pattern I had knit before, the Catch Sweater from Louisa Hardings "Miss Bea's Playtime". However like last time, I knit in the round up to the sleeves and then knit the back and the front separately.
Very Hungry Caterpillar Jumper
I grafted the shoulders, knitted the neck band straight onto the jumper and then picked up stitches and knit the sleeves in the round. I am sure I should probably use short rows to shape the top of the sleeves, but it looks fine like this to me. Instead of plain stocking stitch arms I added a row of purl stitches every 9 rows to make them more caterpillar like.

The jumper came out slightly smaller than the pattern because I used worsted weight rather than aran weight yarn. However as these Louisa Harding sweaters are always massive it doesn't matter too much.
IMAG0152
The caterpillar was knit on the fly - after several attempts I finally cracked it. He is worked in garter stitch. I cast on at the tail and used short rows to shape it. I found the best way to define the different sections was to cast off 2 stitches on one row and then cast on 2 using the backwards loop method on the next row. Increasing and decreasing didn’t give enough of a defined shape. The head was knit in stocking stitch and shaped using normal increases and decreases.
The eyes were knit and appliqued on, as was the nose and the feet. The Antennae were crocheted.
I attached the caterpillar to the jumper with bondaweb. I tried adding the caterpillar's hairs but decided it was just too much.

IMAG0156.jpg

I am so pleased with the finished jumper:
Hungry Caterpillar Jumper
A caterpillar close up:
Hungry Caterpillar Jumper

I think someone else liked his birthday jumper too:
My birthday jumper

10 comments:

Kate said...

I still love it. :-D I love the caterpillar especially - the colour is amazingly perfect for him.

SewIknit2 said...

I love the whole THING! and the fact that you "did" it is BRILL!.
years ago I knitted a "teletubby" jumper for one of my lads, but it was a pattern so no cleverness involved there! but its one I have "kept" - do please be sure to keep THIS one!!!

Super job!
Sue xx

Anonymous said...

Ruth, this jumper is amazing...you are so clever!!

Flossie in Stitches said...

Absolutely amazing, gorgeous, brilliant! I LOVE it! Lucky wee Thomas. Oh and Happy 1st Birthday too! x

CynthyB said...

Simply AWESOME!

Very impressive!

Anonymous said...

Is it possible for you to post up the pattern for your hungry caterpillar jumper?

My daughter loves the hungry caterpillar and has just had to endure 4 hour of surgery, and is on an all-liquid diet for 8 weeks, so desperately needs something to cheer her up!

I know this would do just the trick. :)


Amazing jumper.

Jenny said...

I absolutely love this! I am doing VHC for my sons 1st birthday as well and this is the perfect thing for him to wear! Do you by any chance sell these? I am knot a knitter :)

Thanks!,

Anonymous said...

Thank you for linking my llittle cardigan! Did you see that lately, we had a hungry caterpillar party? Go have a look, maybe you'll like it! It was fun and a huge success. And I made a caterpillar-hat to go along. Funny that you linked to the cardi just now...

The Button Witch said...

Absolutely amazing !!!

אריק said...

Can you explain how you did the caterpiller ?
Thank you❤