I am still working on Pando
but got sidetracked this week because my sister challenged me to design something
for her. She wanted a small knitted snail to be used as a pin. This was a
daunting task and took a lot of trial and error. I tried to make it from a
traditional cable but it didn’t look right.
It really looks more like a
snake to me. So I scrapped it and tried another tactic (although I might
resurrect this pattern for something with a snake on it! It looks kind of like
a rattler – we have tons of rattlesnakes around here).
My second try was for a more
rounded concentric circle with just the hint of cables or twisted stitches. I
also wanted to knit on a body to a shell to make it really look like a snail.
This is what I came up with:
I altered some things and
here is the final idea, with embroidery and bead. It is basic and the cables
are subtle but I think it is pretty cute. My sister is testing it now but I
wanted to make it available to anyone else who wanted to try it. It’s free but
let me know any mistakes because there might be some.
As I was researching what
snails looked like, I came across an indigenous snail in Utah. The Utah
roundmouth snail is a species of freshwater snail first described by Richard
Ellsworth Call in 1884 from specimens collected at Utah Lake. Despite having
lived in Utah for over 4 million years, today the unfortunate snail is now
extirpated in the state. Except for this cute version that you can knit and
wear to try and reintroduce it to your local area.
