Acorns (on Ravelry)

I did a thing, and I'm trying to share it.

Acorns

This is less of a pattern and more of a recipe, if that makes sense.

Gather and gently clean your acorn caps.  Make sure they are totally dry and bug free.

Use ANY scraps you want (I prefer fingering and sport, but that’s TOTALLY personal preference and what you have handy).

I mostly used size 2 and 3 dpn needles.  These are really too small to bother with anything else, in my humble opinion.  And they whip up so quickly!

Cast on anywhere from 12 to 20 stitches on 2 double pointed needles.  I cast on the full amount to a single needle, then transfer half to the second needle, but again that’s personal preference.  You will be making a “big” open circle to start.  Join for knitting in the round, making sure none of your stitches are twisted.

Knit anywhere from 3-5 rows of your initial amount of stitches, whatever that may be.

Then a decrease row.  Sometimes I go K2tog all the way around.  Sometimes I do k1, k2tog repeat.  It doesn’t matter exactly as each one looks a little different.  If it doesn’t work out to a “perfect” amount, that’s no problem.  These are very forgiving and it leads to a more organic shape and diversity of end results if they aren’t all the same anyway!

You can immediately snip your yarn and run a tapestry needle through the remaining stitches to get your shape, or you can knit 1 “plain” row and then snip and cinch your stitches together.  I go through all the stitches once, cinch tight, then sew a single stitch across the opening to sort of weave the ends in and keep everything tight, and then run the needle with the end up into the middle of the bottom to conceal the end within the body of your little acorn.

Tuck the ends (the cast on and the snipped off end) into the bottom of your acorn.  Use a tiny pinch of stuffing to fill your acorn. 

Find the cap that fits right.  This is personal preference, of course.  I like them to fit naturally so that the cast on edge disappears into the cap and there is no gap around the edge.  All ends should be completely tucked up inside the acorn and cap.

I make about 10-30 acorn bodies, fitting each one to their cap as I go and then hot glue all the caps to the acorns.

Now have a ball taking pictures!