I got this little toy knitting mill out of our school’s storage today and played around making icords to see if we could use it with the kids. Having made a couple nice ones, I just decided to use them for something and this little octopus came to mind. It was so quick and easy and fun to make! I’d promised a little charm thing to another one of my colleagues and I’m thinking this little guy fits the bill juuuuust right. I hope she likes it!

The head was made with DPNs, starting with 54 stitches over three needles, decreasing down to 18 stitches over three rows. I then knit in the round until it was a size I liked, then decreased to 9 stitches over three rows, pulled the yarn through last remaining stitches to bind off. I then laid out 4 icords in a sort of cross, bound them together with extra yarn through the middle of the cross, folded the bundle I got that way in two and stuffed the center inside the head. then it was just a matter of adding the eyes, securing the legs to the head by pulling yarn through the top of it, which yarn then served to attach the whole thing to the keyring bit. Last little thing, I threaded some extra yarn all around the base of the head, just before the widening part, and pulled tighter, binding off through one of the legs. And voilà! From head to bottom of the longest leg, this little guy is just over 4 inches (not counting the metal keyring part, though). It’s about the size of the keyrings I usually buy. :-D

Not sure the explanations are very clear but basically, it was super simple. Dunno if it’s even worth writing up a pattern for this, really. :-)

I’m thinking I’ll be making more as presents in the future. :-)