Since I have a real liking for nature’s most peculiar, weird, mysterious or misunderstood underdogs I decided to design some of them for anyone who wants to get to know these natural weirdo’s a little better!

Tarantulas make up a group of large, mostly hairy-looking, spiders of a family with over a 1000 species. One of the most conspicuous crawlers (and the best known tarantula from Costa Rica) is the orange-kneed tarantula (Megaphobema mesomelas) in this pattern. Running into one of these awe-inspiring arachnids will give most people a formidable fright, but tarantulas – like most spiders - will usually also prefer the option of flight over fight! So, if one day you happen to knock into your knitted spider in a dark corner of your house, just remember that it’s orange knees will be knocking from this eerie encounter as well!

For this 7 cm model (with legs up to 6 cm) 2 mm (UK 14, US 0) double pointed needles and Alpaca Drops (16) black and (22) light rust were used. For volume and contrast plies of black and white yarn were added to the base. Soft toy filling was used to fill the spider and pipe cleaners to make the legs and joints pliable and firm.
This tarantula is an easy, fast and fun project, perfectly suited to use up any left-over scraps of yarn you have lying around. It asks for some knitting flat, in the round and i-cords.

Creep it up ! Viv