This week’s fea­ture dinosaur is every­one’s favourite veg­e­tar­i­an — Trix­ie Tricer­atops! Yes, she is named after the dinosaur toy down the street from Toy Sto­ry 3 :D

I made both ver­sions of Trix­ie with a heavy worsted / bulky yarn and a 4 mm hook, because I’ve always had the idea that it’s a chunky kind of dinosaur. So the fin­ished dinosaur is slight­ly larg­er than the oth­er dinosaurs we have been mak­ing. The head of a tricer­atops is 1/3 of its total length! So I’ve also made the body a bit smaller.

Tricer­atops is named for the 3 horns on its head (lit­er­al­ly means “3‑horned face”), so it was impor­tant to get this fea­ture right, and I spent quite some time fig­ur­ing out a way to make the horns look like they are seam­less­ly attached to the head. I’m quite hap­py with the way it turned out and it’s actu­al­ly not dif­fi­cult to do :)

Mate­ri­als:

• A bit of heavy worsted or bulky weight yarn for body and head
• A bit of sport weight yarn in white, for horns
• 4 mm hook
• 2.5 mm hook
• Tapes­try needle
• Sewing nee­dle, black thread, 4 mm round black bead (if you don’t have that, the reg­u­lar black seed bead would look fine too)
• Fab­ric glue (option­al)

Pat­tern:

The body, tail and legs of tricer­atops is the same as stegosaurus, except that it has one less round on the body, and skips the head. Check out the stegosaurus pat­tern page for pho­to tuto­r­i­al espe­cial­ly on how to make the legs! But I’ll write the entire pat­tern below so it’s easy.

The body begins as a cir­cle, and with larg­er hook and main colour.

Round 1: ch 2, 6 sc in 2nd sc from hook, don’t join in round.

Round 2: 2 sc in each sc around (12 sc).

Round 3: [sc in next sc, 2 sc in next sc] six times (18 sc).

Fold piece in half, sl st across back of dinosaur through both lay­ers until last sc, don’t fas­ten off.

Tail: sl st in last st through both lay­ers on back, ch 5, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, sl st in next ch, sc in last 2 ch of tail, sl st in a space between the 3rd and 4th round in the body (bel­ly part of the dinosaur). Remove hook and pull out the loop. Pull through enough yarn so that you have a 12″ tail. Cut yarn.

Hind leg: Thread the yarn tail through the tapes­try nee­dle, weave the nee­dle through the bel­ly of the dinosaur so that the nee­dle comes out through a stitch between the 2nd and 3rd rounds of body in the front. Pull the yarn tail through, remove the nee­dle. Insert hook through the stitch where the yarn tail came through. Pull up a loop using the yarn tail. 

ch 3, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, remove hook and pull the yarn tail out.

Thread the yarn tail through the tapes­try nee­dle again, insert nee­dle in a stitch between 1st and 2nd round in body, then come out in a stitch between 1st and 2nd round in body in the front on the oppo­site side.

Front leg: Work as the same as hind leg, as fol­lows: remove nee­dle, insert hook through the stitch where the yarn tail came through, pull up a loop with the yarn tail. ch 3, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, pull out yarn tail, thread yarn tail back in tapes­try nee­dle, insert nee­dle through a stitch between 2nd and 3rd round of body, then come out near the top on the back of the piece, fas­ten off.

Head: 

Round 1: ch 2, 6 sc in 2nd ch from hook, don’t join in the round.

Round 2: 1 sc in every sc around (6 sc).

Round 3: [2 sc in next sc, 1 sc in next sc] three times (9 sc).

Round 4: hdc in next sc, *[dc, ch 3, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, dc] in next sc*, * to * will be known as the “V‑stitch”. Repeat V‑stitch in next 2 sc, hdc in next sc, sc in next 4 sc, sl st in next st, pull out a long yarn tail for sewing, cut yarn. 

Horns:

Using white yarn and small­er hook, and leav­ing a 3″ tail, ch 5, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, sl st in next 3 ch, ch 8, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, sl st in next 3 ch, ch 8, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, sl st in next 2 ch, fas­ten off, leav­ing a 3″ tail.

You will end up with some­thing that looks like this — 2 longer (fore­head) horns sep­a­rat­ed by ch 3, and a short­er (nose) horn sep­a­rat­ed from one of the longer horns by ch 4.

Remem­ber the V‑stitch in the last round (round 4) of the head? Insert small­er hook (or an even small­er hook if you have one) into the base of the first V‑stitch you made in round 4 (the V‑stitch on the most right when you’re fac­ing it), then insert tip of the hook through a loop at the top of the fore­head horn on the right. Pull the horn through the stitch in head.

Then, insert hook into the base of the last V‑stitch made in round 4 (the V‑stitch on the most left when you’re fac­ing it). Insert tip of the hook through a loop at the top of the remain­ing fore­head horn, pull the horn through the stitch in head. 

Final­ly, insert hook into a space between two sc’s in round 1 of head, then insert tip of the hook through a loop at the top of the nose horn, pull the horn through the stitch in head.

Tie the yarn tails of the horns togeth­er. You can put some fab­ric glue at the stitch­es where the horns were pulled through inside the head to secure them more, but that’s optional.

Here’s a close up of the head so you can see how the horns are positioned…

Now we sew the head to the body. (When I took process pic­tures I for­got to put the horns on before sewing the head to the body, hence the head with­out horns in these pic­tures. That makes sewing on the horns more dif­fi­cult — but not impos­si­ble — I would still sug­gest sewing on the horns first before attach­ing head to body)

Thread the tapes­try nee­dle through the yarn tail left on head. We’re attach­ing the base of the head to the nub on the neck end of the body.

You’re fold­ing the head piece in half, and the head will sand­wich the “neck” part of the body, like so. Stitch through all lay­ers a few times, then fas­ten off.

Sew the eye right below the fore­head horn. Weave in all the ends. And here she is, in Trix­ie colours! :D

 

To recap, here are the mys­tery dino CAL posts so far:

Mys­tery dino CAL intro post

Stu the Stegosaurus

Dmitri the Dimetrodon

Don’t for­get to share your dinosaur pics by:

• Email­ing genuinemudpie[at]gmail[dot]com
• Blog­gers: leave a com­ment on any of the Mys­tery Dino CAL posts with a link to your blog post with the picture.
• Insta­gram: tag me @genuinemudpie and use the hash­tag #mys­tery­dinocal
• Join­ing the Rav­el­ry group
• Post­ing your FOs to my Rav­el­ry dino project pages!

 

Have a beau­ti­ful week every­one! :D