Gripping

General information

This 26-page pattern is tremendously detailed and holds your hand every step of the way. There are pages and pages of step-by-step photos to show you exactly what to expect as you work. The pattern is full of helpful tips on everything from casting on, blocking, filling your tentacles, helping them stand up, and managing your ends.

It’s almost absurdly detailed, but it really does mean you can totally make these, even if you’ve never knit a project like this before!

Skills & scope

Each tentacle fits in the palm of your hand and takes only a few hours to knit. The knitting is mostly stockinette worked in the round with just a few carefully placed purl stitches and decreases to give it texture and shape.

The pattern uses charts, so you will need to know how to follow a knitting chart.

Yarn, gauge & sizing

The pattern comes in four sizes. You can make it in any weight of yarn, and the finished size will change depending on what yarn you use. You don’t need to match any particular gauge, but you do need to knit tightly enough to make a firm fabric so your filling doesn’t show through.

I’ve knit mine in everything from fingering weight up through aran weight yarn, and I made all of mine with a piece of fluffy lace weight yarn held alongside to help make a denser fabric.

You can absolutely use scrap yarn for this.

The tentacles in the pictures took less than 100 yards of each yarn used. The bases are between 2 and 4 inches in diameter, and the tentacles are between 12 and 24 inches long when stretched out (more like 4-8 inches when coiled up and posed like they are in the pictures).

Tools & supplies

You’ll need needles that let you work in the round (circulars or DPNs) in whatever size lets you get a firm fabric with your chosen yarn plus the general knitting tools you need for most projects (scissors to cut your yarn, a darning needle to weave in ends, the occasional stitch marker or bit of scrap yarn to hold stitches).

You will also need some filling to go inside them (plastic bags that would otherwise end up in the trash are actually perfect for this), wire to run up the side and make them posable (I used 12 gauge aluminum wire for most of my tentacles, but anything that’s firm enough to hold its shape and soft enough to bend is fine), something round and flat for the base (jar lids are perfect), and maybe a weight (like rocks or coins) or magnets if you like. I have a page here with information about the supplies I use in my projects. Or, Little Skein, the dyer whose lovely yarn I used for these, has kits available with all sorts of awesome goodies.