How to Knit Eyes for Knitted Animals
Making eyes for knitted animals is as simple as creating a bobble. Bobbles are made by knitting a lot of stitches into one stitch, which causes a dome-shaped bubble to form on the surface of the knitting. Bobbles are great ways to make animal eyes because the bobbles are attached in the knitting, and not likely to be pulled off the animal. Another bonus is that there is no sewing on of eyes later once an animal is knitted. Bobbles give knitters many options for customization of size and shape of a knitted animal's eyes.
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Instructions
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Work the row of knitting up until you reach the eye position. Drop the working yarn and let it dangle.
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Add new working yarn the color of the eye. Push the right knitting needle into the next stitch knitwise, and pull up a loop of the new yarn. Make sure the new working yarn has a tail of 4 inches.
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Finish the first knit stitch. Do not drop the stitch off the left knitting needle. Yarn over, or wrap the yarn around the right knitting needle once. Knit the same stitch again. Turn.
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Purl the three stitches. Turn. Or knit the three stitches backward on the knit side instead of purling. Push the left knitting needle into the left-most stitch on the right knitting needle. The left knitting needle goes behind the right knitting needle when inside the stitch loop. Wrap the working yarn over the left knitting needle, from left to right and back to front. Pull the working yarn through the stitch with the left knitting needle. Drop the stitch off the right knitting needle. Repeat the backward knitting method for the remaining two stitches.
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Knit the first two stitches together. Knit the last stitch. Drop the eye color working yarn, but do not cut it.
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Pick up the original working yarn and continue knitting the row as normal until you reach the position for the second eye. Pick up the eye color working yarn, and knit the second eye the same way you knit the first eye.
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Cut a 4-inch length of the eye working yarn, and let it dangle. Once your knitting is complete, tie the yarn tail for the first and second eyes together in a triple knot. Weave in the ends of the tails if you prefer, or let the tails dangle if you are stuffing the animal.
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Tips & Warnings
The directions are given for right-handed knitters.
Yarn over and knit the same stitch more times if you want larger eyes. You can also knit and purl extra rows after increasing, to make the bobble larger. Remember, you will have to knit two stitches together more than once if you create more stitches.
Tighten the knitting in the row above the bobbles more than normal. Otherwise, the bobbles will create holes in the animal.
Knitty cautions, "Be careful with your yarn wrapping! That's the easiest place to go wrong when knitting back backwards."
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
