Knitting With Rosie: I've made you the moon.

I've made you the moon,

so when you're in bed at night

you can think of it shining

as you shut your eye's tight.

Well here’s hoping!

I think Hector thinks the Moon and has something to do with cows, as sometimes when looking at picture of one he’ll point to the sky and say ‘Mooooooo’.

As I was trying to explain to him the difference one morning I had the idea to knit him his own little moon.

I’d just been given some great chunky yarn from his Nana Marie and it’s so dense and well, in my eyes moon looking; having been unraveled and wound into a big ball.

I hadn't intended it to be a pattern I might share, but if you would like to make your own little moon here it is. It’s a pretty quick knit to make the structure, It just depends how many craters you add, they can be a little tricky if you're not used to picking up stitches. But each one is over so soon that it feels achievable.

The Moon

A few notes on the pattern.

I've used a chunky Rowan cotton yarn but knitted it up on 4.5mm needles to make it a really solid construction. For the craters I split the yarn in 2, but you can always use a similar colour in a finer ply.

The Yarn I used is Rowan, 'All Seasons' which is now unfortunately discontinued, but the tension is: 7mm needles (as the wool band states), 11st/ 16rows for a 10cm/ 4inch square. On 4.5mm needles it's: 18st/ 22rows.

You will need:

Chunky wool (any chunky stash yarn will do as long as it's moony)

4.5mm needles

set of 5, 2.5mm dpns

Toy stuffing

wool needle for sewing up.

The moon

Cast on 6 stitches.

Row 1- Kfb all stitches
Row 2 - Purl all stitches
Row 3- Kfb all stitches
Row 4 - Purl all stitches
Row 5 - *K1fb K1* to end of row
Row 6 - Purl all stitches
Row 7 - *K1fb K2* to end of row
Row 8 - Purl all stitches
Row 9 - *K1fb K3* to end of row
Row 10 - Purl all stitches
Row 11 - *K1fb K3* to end of row (total of 60 stitches)
Row12- Purl all stitches
Row13- Knit all stitches
Repeat rows both 12 and 13 a further 6 times

Row 25- *K2tog knit 4* to end of row
Row 26- Purl all stitches
Row 27- *K2tog knit 3* to end of row
Row 28- Purl all stitches
Row 29- *K2tog knit 2* to end of row
Row 30- Purl all stitches
Row 21- *K2tog knit 1* to end of row
Row 32- Purl all stitches
Row 33- K2tog to end of row
Row 34- Purl all stitches
Row 35- K2tog to end of row

Cut yarn leaving a long tail and thread trough the remaining 6 stitches on the needle. Remove from the needle, pull tight and tie off.

seam up to about an inch before your cast on stitches then fill with lots toy stuffing, then continue sewing up till you have a solid moon.
I used mattress stitch to seam up, you can find loads of great tutorials on youtube if you haven't done this before.

Craters

Notes on pick up stitches for the craters:

Each stitch you have made for your moon forms a little V shape, for these craters I pick up one half of the V, I'll call them legs.

Step 1
With a darning needle thread your yarn threw the leg of a V and tie (leaving a 5cm tail to tidy away when finished).

Step 2
Go to the next Leg of a V to the left and insert 1 of your dpns, this is will be your first stitch. knit this stitch through the back.

Step 3
Again go to the next leg on the left of your first stitch and knit this through the back to create your second stitch.

Step 4
You want the craters to be as circular as you can so imagine a square or diamond shape when picking up these stitches.
I picked up between 3 - 7 stitches per needle depending on the size of the crater.

Step 5

When you have all your stitches on their needles you can decide either to, knit 1 round and then cast off all the stitches or simply cast off all the stitches made; depending on how deep you want the crater. I did a mixture.

Its a good idea when you have finished casting off, to pick up the first stitch you cast off and use this to cast off the last stitch in your round, it make it look neater (see the image above).

When you have made all the craters with a wool needle sew in all the ends to hide them.