Over the last few weeks I have been working on a dinosaur for my grandson.
First of course I had to look for a pattern. I discovered that there are very few books for knitted or crochet dinosaurs; in fact I only found one of each and reviews on Amazon suggested issues. The dinosaurs pictured were also not quite good enough, not realistic enough. There were some on Ravelry that I was almost tempted by but they cost more per dinosaur than buying a book.
Then I found a FREE pattern that was just perfect.
Well almost: it was in Spanish.
However with a bit of help from Google Translate and a table of Spanish crochet terms for where Google faltered, I was off.
You can also find it here on Ravelry – https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/dinosaurio-t-rex
So meet the dinosaur. 
I made his head, body and tail first then his limbs.
This was where it began to become more difficult. 
To make his front legs you first make his toes then link them together to continue up the limb. They involve a magic loop then spiraling from just five dcs (US-scs). To work in a circle, especially such a small circle, it is easiest to work at the back of the circle however that means that the right side is inside and it wasn’t until I had finished the legs that I realised that they were inside out!!
So undoing down to toes, turning toes right way out and redoing limb.
At least this meant that I didn’t make this mistake with the back legs. 
BUT
Theses toes were fatter underneath and the feet are quite shapely. I had not looked at the diagram that says how to join the toes before doing the feet, But when I shaped the feet I could tell they were not bulging in the right places so more undoing. I had a bit more difficulty when it came to understanding the method of creating the heel but eventually I got it right and then I just kept going following the instructions precisely. Do you like his knobbly knees? So clever.
The instructions for shaping the face were also amazingly detailed. Showing exactly where to insert the needle. 
The dinosaur pictured in the pattern had plastic eyes with yellow irises but I only had all black safety eyes so I added a bit of yellow felt.
Then I had to make the teeth!
I made all the teeth in white acrylic yarn only to realise that they were much too big. 
Recourse to the pattern showed that the pattern suggested making the body in an aran weight yarn (I had used DK) and then making the teeth in something that appeared to be about 4-ply. So I decided all that I could do was to try #10 crochet cotton.
Teeth were not easy. Only three stitches into a magic loop then increasing gradually. At first I was remaking each tooth maybe half-a-dozen times before I could get to the end!!!!! This was in acrylic, cotton was even harder, but I did get into a bit more of a rhythm eventually!
And twenty-one in all with three different sizes involved.
But when I had finally made all the teeth and then sewn them securely and evenly in his mouth, he looked suitably fierce. 
Now it was a matter of joining head to body then back limbs, then tail, which partially covered the back limbs, and finally the front limbs.
A few ridges down his back and he was complete. (As you can see there were some bits in cream too! The foot claws were a bit like the teeth! and black for inside the mouth.)
Another view. 
And marching across the plain. 
I had to use him leaning against the chair to take these photographs but using a cardboard cylinder under his tail he can stand freely. 
I had intended to make the centre of the red poppy in dark green and cream, as I thought that was close to a real poppy, but my friend said “no!” for remembrance poppies the centre had to be all black. So that is what I did and so didn’t bother with the extra radial stitches.
They look a bit odd but do taste okay.
But I added more flour to the piping mixture and this time it was too thick and didn’t want to let go of the piping nozzle!
they look a bit more respectable and also taste fine, though have a firmer texture than shop ones, that I like. Is this ambiguous? I mean I prefer the home made ones!
Previously I had made them some bunting. 
Looking at it now (writing this post in advance on Friday!) I didn’t realise I had used red as well. When I made the coaster I thought the purple was the best colour to blend with the other three. So I pulled out the purple strip and replaced it with a red one. 
Personally, from an aesthetic point of view, I prefer the purple but this hopefully will co-ordinate with the bunting and so be much better!
And here it is next to the white and silver one. 
See more at –
For anyone who has not seen these before: they are all based on photographs of real snowflakes. You can find them at 
The ones in the above photograph are made in Stylecraft Special DK but they can be made in a variety of other yarns as you can see in my angel wreath. 
And a full set in a two tone crochet cotton. 
*[Worzel Gummidge is a living breathing scarecrow from the books of Barbara Euphan Todd. Although I never read the books as a child they were made into a TV series with Jon Pertwee which I watched with my children. He had several heads which he changed depending on the needs of the current situation.]
the most popular one with the purple edging and pointy corners. 
With the pineapple bookmark the pages don’t quite lie flat where it is. 
But as I suspected with the Celtic one they gape rather more. Similarly with my latest version of the slip stitch one. 
Now with pointed corners! 
Even my plain Celtic cross lifts the pages a little more. 
Now with cord and tassel. 
And of course my latest Celtic cross bookmark. 
(Not yet with added cord) operates more like the other embellished Celtic ones.
Just thought it was useful to give an idea of their relative thickness! Though when in use in the middle of the book they show slightly less!
which is why I started experimenting with adding slip stitches. 
At the time I did try adding the slip stitches to the back loop only so as to give an edge but found that this made the strip so much wider. I thought of using dcs (US-scs) for the central ribbon but knew this would be more fiddly so decided against it.
but could see that the cross was then so much bigger. (I did increase the number of stitches as well and could have reduced them a bit but it would still have been bigger than I wanted.)
I could see that this was much smaller than the original and was not entirely surprised as crochet is very stretchy in a sideways direction (especially the upright of the cross) but had noticed that adding the slip stitches removed this, as with the cross with the purple slip stitches above.
You can see here how these two attempts compared with the original. 
So I decided that as with my other slip-stitched crosses it wasn’t necessary to increase the stitch numbers except for the upright and the circle and tried again.
The slip stitch edged cross (bottom right) does not really need stiffening and had finally given me what I was after.
One each to three people.
just say so in your comment.
It feels too large to be used as a bookmark and I think I will hang it up on a wall somewhere in the house.
This would be useable as a bookmark or for a wall and in fact using the thicker cotton for the edge made it firmer. I am not sure what size hook I used as it was one of the ones I inherited from my mother. In those days each hook maker seems to have had their own system of numbering and I couldn’t work out what would be the metric equivalent.
I actually think that the smaller size hook is an improvement. I was previously using the smaller of the size hooks recommended on the label.
This seemed to fit together just right!
on Pinterest I have had about three weeks of hundreds of people every day coming to look at the pattern. Even now it seems to be over one hundred.
(I can’t find it at present so it is probably keeping a place in a book somewhere!)
I found that this was naturally stiffer and was probably not worth starching.
I thought that a totally plain bookmark would be boring and wouldn’t show off the plaitwork to best effect and so I decided to add a dc (US-sc) edging. I had increased the number of stiches per crossing back to four.
I thought that this was reminiscent of this style of plaitwork in my book. 
However I still wanted to try a dc edging so I increased the number of stitches for a crossing to five. (I made a slight adjustment to the ends too.)
The leather bookmark on the left is rather large, more suitable for a large book like a bible, but I often use the two papyrus ones in my library books; so you can see that they are all useable.
