T-Rex!

I had meant to do this project a while back, but somehow it had gotten lost in the pile of toys for newer babies...

Anyway, better late than never, plus it is hard to deny when they send you a cute video of their kid asking for a "dinosaurus" and giggling.

I used this free pattern from All About You.com for the dino. One GIANT thing to note, that cause me a few problems, is that this pattern is written in UK terms and has a few typos as well. For those that do not want to look it up, here is what you really need to know: The pattern says "dc" and says that means double crochet... A UK double crochet is a US single crochet. Don't ask me why, it just is.

I did not like the color scheme first off, it was too baby-ish and this is for a boy. So green and red and dark green felt better. I also changed the arms so that I could use what I have learned from previous patterns and use a color change row in the back loop only to make a nice hard line to give a bit of definition to the sleeve versus the arm. I also changed the direction the arm is constructed, their is from the fingers to shoulder, mine goes the other way so that the white properly overlaps the green as a shirt would be over the skin. If you do it the other way it looks like the skin is popping out of a shirt that is too tight for it.

Arms
5 sc in magic circle, in color of sleeve (white)
2sc in each around 10sts
2 rows of 10 sts
Switch to green
One row of 10 sts in back loops only
Six more rows of 10 sts, stuff and sew end closed flat
Leave a really long Green tail and use it to Embroider three bumps on hand for claws.*


*This is another thing I changed. They suggested a color change for the "fingers" of the arm and then to use black to give it lines to show the three fingers. I wanted it to feel more like claws so I left a really long tail and just looped over and over and over to get three distinct bumps for fingers. I did the same for the toes, but used the darker color to make those feet talons a bit more distinguishable.

Fingers are bumps.

Here is the pattern for the legs. This is where I found the typo in the decreasing section, so I rewrote it for my own sanity, since I needed to make two that match.

Legs
6sc in magic circle in green of body
2 sc in each (12)
2 sc in one stitch, one sc in next, around (18)
2 sc in one, one sc in next 2 (24)
Three rows of 24
Sc in next 11, decrease, sc in next 9, decrease (22)
Sc in next 10, decrease, sc in next 8, decrease (20)
Sc in next 9, decrease, sc in next 7, decrease (18)
Sc in next 1, decrease, repeat around (12)
Five rows of 12
Leave tail to sew up opening. Stuff! Bind off.
Attach dark green to corner and leave long tail to make claws for toes.

In progress with head and arms attached.

Here is something I want to share: the way you change colors can make a difference in the way it looks and feels. Especially for clothing meeting skin.

See how the green neck looks like it is under the red of the shirt neck? That is because I changed to the green color by crocheting in the back loops only, so the nice line of red is the front loops of the crochet. If you don't, it looks like the rows in the shirt where it meets and kind of makes those ^ shapes. Since I was working from the butt to the neck for the body, I had to cheat the bottom row of the shirt. That row is a regular color change like the middle shirt rows, but I embroidered a line over it to make the shirt bottom feel right to my mind. These are the things that make it special and perfect and give it charm, that no one will notice but you. Do it anyway.

Oh almost forgot! The shirt I made is striped. Theirs is solid... and boring. I used their pattern, figured out that there were 12 rows for the shirt and simply changed colors every two rows despite what the pattern says.

The face uses black for eyebrows and nostrils. White yarn for a crooked toothy smile. (Another thing I changed, that smile, they had a dark line of black, but T-rex needs teeth.) The dark green of the toes matches the dark green of the spikes.

Project time: ~10 hours

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