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! :)