FO: 1-Up

Cross posted at Sally Comes Unraveled and Year Long Gift-A-Long.


I should have taken a better close up, but this is as good as it gets. This is cropped out of the following photo:


When Jules and I visited Wildfiber during the last trip, Jules asked me to make him a stuffed Panda. The trip I took last weekend was partly a birthday celebration for Jules, and I was going to knit him the panda as a gift. But I ran out of time and I had trouble finding a good panda pattern.

At one point I remember he had asked if I could make a mushroom pillow. I didn't have time for a pillow, but I did find the Super Mario Mushroom Knitted Toy pattern from Skyline Chilly.

The night before I left, I grabbed some Cascade 220 in Palm and White and threw it in my knitting bag along with a Ziploc bag of stuffing and some US Size 4 bamboo needles. Acrylic would have probably been a more practical, but I couldn't quite find the right colors in the right weights. I bought the Cascade on hand for another project, but it only took a little bit of each color, so I have plenty left.


The original pattern calls for KnitPicks Palette, a finger weight yarn. I ended up with a bigger mushroom because I used worsted weight. (The pattern says you can adapt it to pretty much any weight of yarn.) It still fits in the palm of your hand.

The colors are also different from the ones called for. I only used two. I think his might be closer to the original 1-Up mushroom from Super Mario Brothers, although I'm not sure. (Video game geeks, feel free to correct me.)


Going through security didn't take nearly as long as I had expected, so I had time to work on it while I waited for the plane to take off.


This is how far I had gotten after about 45 minutes of waiting. I napped on the first leg of the trip and finished this up on the second leg. The whole thing probably took less than two hours. I "wrapped" it in a barf bag from the plane and gave it to Jules along with a wallet and a yo-yo I bought him. He loved it.

The pattern itself is quick, but a little bit challenging. Mostly it's the colorwork for the spots that's difficult. There's a pretty big gap between colors, so you have to be careful with tension.



I should have taken a better close up.