Ungadunga:

What is an Ungadunga?

An Ungadunga is a creature my Grandpa Tony made up when my sister, my cousins, and I were growing up. It’s a little gremlin-y critter that lives in crawl spaces and attics and generally causes mischief. When I moved into my current apartment, I found a crawlspace door in my bedroom, jokingly made a sign that said “Ungadunga Home,” and hung it over the door for the Ungadunga. I then started hearing very loud knocking coming from behind the door late at night… Thankfully some investigation showed that that crawlspace door was actually a plumbing access panel and the knocking always started 30 seconds after my upstairs neighbor turned on their shower. I thought it would be funny to make an Ungadunga, since we already have an Ungadunga door. The idea is to create a cute but weird creature to bring my Grandpa’s stories to life, but hopefully not the kind of “bringing to life” where I wake up at 2 am to see him standing at the foot of my bed watching me sleep, you know?

If you would also like a weird gremlin-y creature to live in your crawlspaces and cause mischief, here is a “recipe” on how to make one. Please be warned that if your Ungadunga is a little too lively for your tastes, I will not be held responsible for its actions.

I don’t feel comfortable charging anyone for access to my pattern, but if you would like to donate some money to The Alzheimer’s Association (https://www.alz.org/), I would appreciate it. Unfortunately many of my older relatives, Grandpa Tony included, have developed dementia. It’s not much, but if you would like to donate, maybe Ungadunga can do something to help.

You will need: size 6 needles - circular and DPNs, tapestry needle, glitter, safety eyes, scissors, and a whole bunch of stash yarn you are looking to get rid of. If you want to use one specific kind of yarn, I would recommend Wool of the Andes bulky weight from Knit Picks, because it’s my favorite kind of yarn.

Yarn weight is not important as long as you can keep the gauge consistent. This particular project is done with “bulky weight” yarn, as in some yarn is proper bulky weight yarn and some of it is worsted or DK and just doubled or tripled until the yarn approximates the thickness of bulky weight yarn.

Really, the cardinal rule of this project is that as long as you are happy with the results, you can get those results however you want.