Helical Bear (https://www.knightsofknit.com/blog/2018/01/29/helical-bear) is knitted from Gregory Patrick’s “The Teddy Bear That Saved Me” pattern – available in the Beasties pattern book on Gregory’s store here.
I used the helical knitting technique to do single-line stripes in 3 colours. See here on the youchoobs for a demo of the technique. The order and moving of the yarn balls is the lifesaving tip!
Here are the mods to the Gregory’s pattern. I am referencing the individual bear pattern I bought from Ravelry here, things may be slightly different in the Beasties book.
About increases:
- In all the circular pieces I decided to knit in a single colour until past the bulk of the increases – figured that the increases would be more stable this way and it looks great on the arms and legs.
- kfb (knit front and back) increases put a little horizontal stitch in. After seeing these pulling a little horizontal stitch of the previous row’s colour into the current row while making the body, I switched to using m1 increases for head, arms and legs. M1 makes a little vertical colour straddle across rows and looked less “holey” which seemed preferable. You don’t notice so much on the ears, so whatever works.
Legs
Knit in the round instead of flat (i.e. all purl rows are also a round of knit).
Start in one colour for cast-on and sets of increases/decreases (managing the helical yarn changes over these might be tricky), plus the solid colour looks like feet/shoes 😉
Until “Work in stockinet stitch for 3 rows” – on the first of these rounds you should have (5,5,5) stitches. Knit the first two needles (10 sts) in the solid colour, then add in new colours starting on the last needle. This puts the colour join on the back of the leg.
Be careful with colour changes, it’s easy to drop tension, especially along the short single needle run.
Arms
Knit in the round instead of flat, careful managing small number of stitches.
Use single colour for cast-on and all increase rows.
Instead of “Work in stockinette for 29 rows”:
Continue with 2 rounds of single colour used for cast-on/increases
You should have 5 sts on each needle.
Join in other colours.
Knit 22 rounds in helical
Switch back to solid colour
Knit 5 rounds
Follow remainder of pattern
Body
Start in one colour for cast-on and increases through (k3, k1fb).
For “knit each stitch”, add in other colours then follow the rest of the pattern.
Use this solid colour block as the “top” of the body over which you will join the head.
Head
Start in one colour for cast-on and increases until “Knit three rounds” – join in other colours on first of these knit rounds and continue helically until finish.
Ears
Knit flat per pattern.
Cast-on and first row in colour 1
Add in colour 2 on second row (purl), leaving working end of colour 1 at end of first row – do not carry it.
Add in colour 3 on third row (k1, k1fb), leaving working end of colour 2 at end of second row – do not carry it.
Fourth row, pull up working end of colour 1 from row 1, not too tight and purl
Fifth row, pull up working end of colour 2 from row 2, and knit per pattern
Etc… until finished.