The 5th dinosaur is Nessie the Plesiosaurus!

The name ple­siosaurus derives from Greek words for “almost-lizard”. Con­trary to pop­u­lar imag­i­na­tion, ple­siosaurus were not great swim­mers and could not breathe under­wa­ter. It also laid eggs and buried them in soft sand like sea tur­tles. It mea­sured twice as long as a horse, and weight­ed twice as much as a pig. (source)

Here are two Nessies bob­bing along in the ocean. The larg­er blue ver­sion is made with bulky weight yarn and 4 mm hook, and the pale green ver­sion is made with the usu­al worsted weight yarn and 3.5 mm hook.

As you may notice, ple­siosaurus is cro­cheted most­ly the same as bron­tosaurus, but with flip­pers. I took some process pic­tures to show you how I got the flip­pers on :D

I used:

• Small amount of worsted weight yarn
• 3.5 mm hook
• 2.5 mm hook (option­al, but it’s eas­i­er for weav­ing in ends)
• Sewing nee­dle, black thread and seed beads for eyes

Pat­tern:

Make body, neck and tail the same as bron­tosaurus, as follows.

The body begins as a circle.

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).

Round 4: sc in next 17 sc, sl st in next sc, don’t fas­ten off.

Neck & head: ch 8, [yo, pull up a loop] twice in the 3rd ch from hook, pull through all loops on hook, ch 1 (pop­corn stitch made), 2 sc in the same ch as pop­corn stitch, 1 sc in each ch down the neck, con­tin­ue on to back of the dinosaur…

Back: Fold body in half, skip the sc imme­di­ate­ly next to the neck ch (on both sides), sl st in next sc and each sc through both lay­ers of body across back, con­tin­ue on to tail…

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). Fas­ten off.

Flip­pers:

ch 5, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, sc and hdc in next ch, sc in next ch, sl st in next ch, pull yarn through loop, leav­ing a tail 18″-20″ long, cut yarn. It will look like this.

With right side fac­ing, insert hook from the back of the dinosaur into a stitch where you want to posi­tion the first set of flip­pers, between the 2nd and 3rd rounds of body, like so…

Then, pull the yarn tail of the flip­per just made through the body, like so…

With the wrong side of the dinosaur fac­ing and the dinosaur posi­tioned upside down, insert hook through the body again in the same stitch, then pull up a loop using the yarn tail, like so…

Then, ch 5, and con­tin­ue with stitch­es for the oth­er flipper.

After the last sl st made in flip­per, pull out yarn tail, and weave it into the body through the same stitch where the flip­pers are attached.

Repeat as the start of the oth­er flippers.

With right side fac­ing and the dinosaur right side up, insert hook from the back in a stitch between rounds 2 and 3 of body, where you want to posi­tion the oth­er set of flip­pers, like so…

Repeat as the oth­er set of flippers.

Sew on eyes, and we’re done! :)

 

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

Mys­tery dino CAL intro post

Stu the Stegosaurus

Dmitri the Dimetrodon

Trix­ie the Triceratops

Bron­wyn the Brontosaurus

 

Make a splash with your dinosaur pics by:

• Leav­ing 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!

 

Hope every­one is hav­ing a great week­end! :D

 

Meet Bron­wyn the brontosaurus!

Bron­tosaurus means thun­der lizard! And this cro­cheted dino is named Bron­wyn after the girl with mighty strength and the kind­est heart in Miss Pere­grine’s Home for Pecu­liar Chil­dren :)

Here the Bron­tosaurus are enjoy­ing a peace­ful moment shar­ing a snack of ferns. 

It was one of the largest crea­tures ever walked on earth, yet lived entire­ly on plants. In defense, its tail could pro­duce a sound loud­er than the fir­ing of a can­non when it was cracked like a bull­whip! (source)

But I pic­ture bron­tosaurus liv­ing peace­ful­ly among trees, eat­ing plants most of the time.

Because of the way the yarn twists in cro­chet stitch­es, the neck of the dinosaur tends to twist and not stay flat. I would sug­gest using a stiff-feel­ing heavy worsted (like acrylic) or even bulky weight yarn to help main­tain its shape.

To make your own peace­ful dinosaur friend, you will need:

• A bit of worsted weight yarn in main colour
• A length of worsted weight yarn in con­trast­ing colour, for the spots
• 3.5 mm hook
• Tapes­try needle
• Black seed beads, for eyes
• Sewing nee­dle and black thread

Pat­tern:

By now, you prob­a­bly notice that all the mys­tery dino pat­terns fol­low the same dumpling base, with slight mod­i­fi­ca­tions for the promi­nent fea­tures of the dif­fer­ent dinosaurs. So for the bron­tosaurus, it is its long neck! But the body is the same as the oth­er dinosaurs in the series. If you’re new to the CAL, vis­it the first dinosaur of the series, stegosaurus, for a pho­to tuto­r­i­al of cro­chet­ing the body, tail and the legs! 

The body begins as a circle.

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).

*Note that the last round is dif­fer­ent from pre­vi­ous dinosaurs!*

Round 4: sc in next 17 sc, sl st in next sc, don’t fas­ten off.

Neck & head: ch 8, [yo, pull up a loop] twice in the 3rd ch from hook, pull through all loops on hook, ch 1 (pop­corn stitch made), 2 sc in the same ch as pop­corn stitch, 1 sc in each ch down the neck, con­tin­ue on to back of the dinosaur…

Back: Fold body in half, skip the sc imme­di­ate­ly next to the neck ch (on both sides), sl st in next sc and each sc through both lay­ers of body across back, con­tin­ue on to tail…

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.

Using con­trast­ing colour yarn and tapes­try nee­dle, make French knots on body for spots.

Using black seed beads, sewing nee­dle and thread, attach eyes. Weave in all ends.

Woohoo! That was­n’t too hard, right?

 

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

Mys­tery dino CAL intro post

Stu the Stegosaurus

Dmitri the Dimetrodon

Trix­ie the Triceratops

 

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!

 

Stay pecu­liar, friends! :)

 

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

 

Wel­come to the sec­ond episode of mys­tery dino cro­chet-along! Meet Mike’s favourite, Dmitri the Dimetrodon! Known for the awe­some sail on its back! Its con­struc­tion is very sim­i­lar to Stu the stegosaurus, with the same dumpling base :D

The pro­to­type for Dmitri was made while we were wait­ing for our flight home at Cal­gary air­port. The bulky light blue yarn was all I had, but I think it turned out great! 

Fun facts about Dmitri: It is a Greek name that means earth-lover, and the name of my grade 12 math teacher, Ms. Dmitri :)

Fun facts about dimetrodon (from here and here):

• It’s actu­al­ly not a dinosaur, but a pre­his­toric rep­tile! (but we love you any­way, Dmitri!)
• It used its sail to reg­u­late body temperature
• Its name refers to its 2 dif­fer­ent types of teeth, rather than its famous sail (and it’s a meat-eater!)

I did­n’t have beads with me so the poor thing was eye­less the entire flight home :S

For the light blue one with chunky yarn, I used a 4mm hook for the body, and 2.5mm hook and a light worsted yarn for the sail on its back. It’s slight­ly big­ger than the reg­u­lar size one. Hook and yarn for the reg­u­lar size is below.

 

Mate­r­i­al:

• Small amount of worsted yarn — for body (green)
• Small amount of light worsted or sport weight yarn — for sail (pink)
• 3.5 mm hook — for body
• 2.5 mm hook — for sail
• Tapes­try needle
• Sewing nee­dle, black thread, black seed bead

Pat­tern:

It’s the same as stegosaurus for the body, tail and legs, so if you’ve made Stu the stegosaurus, you’d have no prob­lem mak­ing Dmitri! But I’ll repeat the entire pat­tern here any­way so it’s easy. You might still want to check out the link for Stu though, because it has some explana­to­ry pho­tos that might help clar­i­fy the steps.

The body begins as a cir­cle, and with larg­er hook and green yarn.

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).

Round 4: sc in each sc around (18 sc), don’t fas­ten off.

Next, we make the head: in the same sc where last sc was made, [yo, pull up a loop] three times, pull through all loops on hook, ch 1 (clus­ter made), sc in same sc as clus­ter. Don’t fas­ten off.

We now fold the piece in half, and from here on cro­chet through both lay­ers across the back of the dinosaur.

Sail: sl st in next 2 sc, sl st in next sc and attach pink yarn when pulling up loop to fin­ish the sl st.

Don’t fas­ten off green, car­ry it as you work across the back with pink.

The sail is worked in rows per­pen­dic­u­lar to the back of the dinosaur.

Row 1: ch 3, sc in 2nd ch from hook, sc in next ch, sl st in next sc through both lay­ers in body/back of dinosaur, turn.

Row 2: In front loops only (FLO), sc in next 2 sc, turn.

Row 3: ch 2, sc in 2nd ch from hook, in back loops only (BLO), sc in next 2 sc, sl st in next sc in body, turn.

Row 4: sc in next 3 sc FLO, turn.

Row 5: ch 1, sc in next 3 sc BLO, sl st in next sc in body, turn.

Row 6: sc in next 3 sc FLO, turn.

Row 7: Skip first sc, sc in next 2 sc BLO, sl st in next sc in body, turn.

Row 8: sc in next 2 sc FLO, turn.

Row 9: Skip first sc, sc in next sc BLO, sl st in body by pulling up a loop using the green yarn that you’ve been car­ry­ing, fas­ten off pink, con­tin­ue with green for tail.

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, as shown in the pic­ture. Pull through enough yarn so that you have a 12″ tail. Cut yarn.

(You might want to check out the pic­tures in the stegosaurus post for the legs — it’s real­ly eas­i­er than it looks in writing.)

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 the 2nd and 3rd rounds of body in the front. Pull the yarn tail through, remove the nee­dle. Insert small­er hook (if you have it) through the stitch where the yarn tail came through, then 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.

Weave in all the ends. Pull the long yarn tail into the body of the dinosaur to fill it out a bit :)

Using sewing nee­dle and black thread, sew on the seed bead as eye. Weave in thread end.

And it’s done! :D

Hope you enjoy mak­ing the dinosaurs! Don’t for­get to share your cre­ations 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
• Join the Rav­el­ry group
• Post your FOs to my Rav­el­ry dino project pages!

If you’re just join­ing now, here’s the recap of what we got so far!

• Mys­tery Dino CAL info post
• Stu the Stegosaurus

 

As the say­ing goes… May the road rise up to meet you, and may the wind always fill your sail :) Have a ter­rif­ic week!