FO: Blinky the Fish

After making the dead fish hat for my Youngest Nephew and being requested by the rest of his family to ALSO make them fish.....

DH also asked if he could have a fish. And after watching me peruse Ravelry, he exclaimed, "I WANT THAT!!!!"

....which just happened to be Blinky, the 3-eyed fish from the t.v. show, The Simpsons.

So, his yarn was ordered alongside the rest of the family to make fish hats. Of course, by the time I had finished making 4 more fish hats (even with variations), I was more than done with this particular pattern. BUT, DH really wanted his hat, so I obliged.

And, although parts of it were very very boring, I did have to figure out how best to make the eyes for Blinky, which ended up being felt and not knitted. I didn't quite like how other Ravelry projects looked with knitted bulging eyes, nor did I want it to be merely flat 2-dimensional eyes.

In addition, I added a bit more depth to the bulging felt eyes by adding an "eyelid"

Before & After

The eyelid is nothing more than a piece of knitted fabric that is knit to the length of the 3 eyes, then containing matching decreases on both sides. A little bit of stuffing is added to make them "puff" up a bit. The whole piece is then sewed/grafted onto to fish body.

After that, the dorsal and pectoral fins are added. The "curvy" bits of the fins are added using a scallop crochet stitch using a combination of double & triple crochet stitches as I saw fit.

The resulting fish is quite handsome. And quite fetching on DH's head

Felt Eyes for Blinky

The following is a brief guideline on how to make the eyes for Blinky.

Items needed:

• white & black felt
• needle & thread
• stuffing of some sort
• 2 circle cardboard templates (one large, one small)
• a pin

Making the template for the eyes:
The size of your felt eyes depends on exactly how big your fish is and how big you want your eyes. The items I used were:

a) (for the large template) the small end of one of my spinning bobbins.
b) (for the small template) the tape measure I carry around in my knitting kit -- it's one of those plastic tape measures that are rather commonplace at locales like JoAnns

I would have used a compass, if I had one in the house, but you can use anything, really.

Instructions:

1) Cut out the pieces for the white eyeball using your template. You need 1 pair of a small & large circle. (For Blinky, I cut out 3 large & 3 small)

2) Pair up one small & one large circle and pin them together in the center of both circles

3) Take your needle and thread and sew 90% of the edges together. (Obviously, one is bigger than the other so the big circle will fold over "slightly".) You're creating a dome-like shape using these two pieces of felt.

4) Stuff little dome

5) Sew shut.

6) Repeat steps 1-5.

7) Put two eyeballs together along one "edge" and sew those two pieces together

8) Repeat step 7 for the 3rd eyeball.

9) Cut out your black felt irises and sew them onto the white felt. (I did this last because I wasn't sure how the three eyeballs would look after being attached and didn't want Blinky looking cross-eyed.)

Black Pit of Knitting

I am finding that knitting an item that is a single solid color (no heathering, no varigation, no color work...nada)....is *boring*, ESPECIALLY when its all stockinette stitch.

I distinctly recall having this problem with my Ribby Cardigan -- as the sleeves were a solid gray and the body was also a solid blue, but it wasn't so bad, as it had ribbing to at least keep things somewhat interesting

Right now I'm in the orange pit of knitting with DH's Blinky hat -- All orange stockinette punctuated by a decrease round every few inches. (All of the other dead fish hats were also made out of solid color yarns, but there were rounds of color work or the switching of color.)

However, while it's boring, it's rather tolerable in a way because of the bright OSHA orange color. Unfortunately, my Color Palette cardigan (which is a handspun/commercial sweater) -- the cuffs & yoke are in handspun and the rest is commercial Cascade 220 in ...black.

Knitting up the handspun was a delight. Now, I'm in the black pit of knitting....literally....as I knit rounds and rounds stockinette of black yarn for the sleeves. I feel the light being sucked out of me as I knit. I have yet to even begin the body, which will even be a bigger blacker pit (black hole) of knitting.

So, I'm alternating between the orange pit of knitting and the black pit of knitting until I can't stand it anymore then switch to the other pit. Once I get Blinky done, I shall have to either finish up another colorful project or start a new pair of socks in a variegated color, just to save my sanity.

Never Say Never

Yesterday, I got a few minutes to put the eyes on my School of Mostly Dead Fish. I had picked up some felt, cut out the whites, then black felt for the dead irises. Everyone except Eldest Niece wanted 'dead' eyes. She's such a girly-girl, but absolutely adorable.

I really thought I was done with this pattern (after all, I'd already made 5 of these at this point), except then DH asked about HIS fish (which I did promise to make)....*facepalm*

On the flip side, it's is going to be a Most Awesome Fish, because it will be this fish.

So, I cast that on yesterday, and since I really don't have an official deadline, it'll be made in good time. However, I think I shall try and finish it before Xmas so we can take photos of everyone in their hats.

One Step Closer to FO

Yesterday, I finished my BIL's hat for the holidays.

It's part of a bigger school of fish that I'm making for holiday gift giving for SIL, BIL, and the 2 other kids.

I still need to add the eyes, and then I can officially say I'm DONE with holiday knitting.

School of Dead Fish

Several months ago, I made a Dead Fish Hat for my nephew's birthday. The rest of his family (all 4 of them) loved it...so much so that they asked if they could ALL have hats for the holidays.

So, I took down their favorite color combinations, ordered the yarn, and started knitting them...slowly. I have 2 out of the 4 hats completed, and I'm currently knitting the 3rd.

Famous Dead Fish

Well, that was unexpected.

I was catching up on some of the blogs I read, and saw my Dead Fish Hat on the Craftzine Weekly Round-up. LOL I was wondering why I had gotten a bunch of comments on it, via my Flickr account!

I'll have to tell my nephew that his hat is famous now. LOL

One Fish, Two Fish, Three Fish...Dead Fish.

Sometimes, you just have to make something "fun"....like knitting a dead fish. And, this was particularly fun to do. I enjoyed adding the white felt 'dead' eyes to the fish afterwards. AND, it ended up using the remainders of yarn I had left over from the octopus and cat-in-the bag.

However, watching that last bit of yarn slowly get shorter when you're *almost* done can be quite disconcerting. When I finally finished binding off, I had 4 inches left of blue.

I so can't wait to give it to the Youngest Nephew for his birthday.

Details on Ravelry
Yarn: Cascade 220 Red & Teal
Needles: US 7