13-09-2021

Finished Great A’Tuin. Embroidered the eyes on, and went for different shell colours. The yarn I used for the shell was a lesser weight compared to the limbs & head (although both were 8 ply), so I added extra sc rows to the top and bottom to try keep it in proportion. The extra rows increased the height, so I’m hoping the elephants still attach okay. Used 2.5mm and 3.5mm hooks.

I’m currently really struggling with the trunks. I just seem to lose track of the stitches as they twist when I try to do it in the round — it could be the weight of the yarn & the colour makes it hard to tell stitches apart. Going to try again with another hook size (4-4.5mm instead of 3.5mm). Considered trying to start from the other end, but not sure if an increase is going to give the same ‘bend’ as the decrease.

I also don’t have any felt, so doing the tusks is going to be an interesting task. Looking at doing something similar to https://www.ravelry.com/projects/Melomatin/discworld-worl... for the disc, which I’m hoping will be interesting to learn as I’m yet to do any crocheting in the round which involves switching colours. It probably won’t be very accurate, but it’s so small that it will be tricky to get accurate, anyway

10-03-2022

Woohoo! I finished a couple of months ago, but it only made its way home a few weeks ago.

I tried to lay an illustration over a test disc, however I ended up going down a hook size & reducing the disk’s yarn weight, so I didn’t quite manage to make it accurate. It’s wonky, the yarn weight changes with different colours, but hey, I learned a lot in the process. The gruelling, exhausting process.

As you can see, I was a wee bit lazy when it came to changing colours, instead opting to not cut any of the yarn. Advantages meant I didn’t have to weave in any ends or make any knots, but it does result in the individual strands/skeins getting tangled, and it can cause puckering if you don’t leave enough length in the yarn between the last/first colour change stitches. Some puckering will also almost definitely have resulted from both different colours being different weights, and me err, losing track of increase counts repeatedly throughout.

I did continue to loathe doing the elephants (especially the trunks), but I suspect that was the wool yarn I used, which wasn’t easy to crochet with & was probably too thick.