Use much smaller needles than normally used for that type of yarn otherwise dalek is very wide and short and out of proportion

This one’s a prototype that shall be all in one colour just to get a feel of the size of the project and find an ideal gauge for DK yarn.

Started with 3.25mm circular needles and this is going to be a bit of a monster as the base seems huge. I’m using 60cm circular needles and the circumference is almost 50cm!

Update 17th Aug 2012

I’ve had to frog the original version of this project having got just over a third of the way through: despite using a smaller than normal needle size for the DK yarn I am using, this dalek was not forming anything like the proportions I wanted, i.e it was ridiculously wide and not much height to it.

I’ve started again, this time using 2.75mm circular needles.

The circumference of the base is just over 40 cm now, and although I think the bobbles (hemispheres) are noticeably smaller, the proportions are looking far more like I was expecting.

Am now only 7 rows into the project (1st rows of bobbles) and already think this looks better.

Update 18th Aug 2012

Reducing the needles has made a great improvement. Am now almost halfway through knitting the “shoulders”.
As the person I’m making this for likes the British Army Dalek, I’ve opted for a mostly dark green colour, but shall add gunmetal grey and black for details.

I’m intrigued about if I can devise a pattern for the webbing belt to match the original.

Update 22nd Aug 2012

When I got to the shoulders of the body, the 40cm circular needle was simply too long to work comfortably with so I switched to DPNs - in the process I accidentally switched to 2.25mm DPNs for the shoulders and head, although this worked in my favour, as the body looks very neat.

I’ve completed the body. made the eyes and sewn in the loose threads.

When making the “plunger arm” I decided to experiment with Navajo knitting as a means of making the stalk extra sturdy. I Navajo knitted 12 rows - still on 2.25mm using DK yarn, and the result is a very rigid plunger arm. I added an extra couple of rounds to the end of the plunger to make its shape more apparent.

I’m not so keen on the “blaster arm” of this pattern as is doesn’t look like the “whisk” I’m used to seeing, and looks a bit stumpy. Instead I used 2 2.5mm DPNs and ichorded 4 stitches for 4 rows to make the end of the whisk. I then made 3 2-stitch lengths of ichord 10 rows in length. I joined these at the other end and reformed to make a 4-stitch ichord of 6 rows.

Using the tail of the first end of the whisk, I sewed this through the centre of the whisk so as to compress the length of the whisk end, and used fingers to shape the 3 prongs into a whisk shape. I then secured the other end of this tail into the ichord.

Plunger and whisk arms are sewn in place. Just need to make the Eye-stalk, stuff the dalek and make his base.
Really happy with how this is coming along.

Yet another update 10th Sept 2012

I’ve got about a fortnight to go till the recipient of this dalek’s birthday arrives so I’ve decided to make a couple of amendments:

• I want to change the “eyes” from black to white and make them more noticeable so I am going to knit some white bobbles over the existing eyes using some leftover white double knit yarn and larger needles (3.25 mm)

• I made a Kaled Mutant to accompany the dalek, as inspired by the fabulous modifications that @Orata made: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/orata/extermiknit