Pachy the Pachyderm

This is Pachy the Pachyderm... I made him for my nephew who is celebrating his first birthday today. He was rather easy to knit up. You just knit two "gingerbread man" bodies from the feet up and stitch then together. All you need to know for this project is how to knit...there are no purl stitches in this project. You also need to know how to increase by knitting into the front and back of a stitch. Knowing how to do a single cast on is important so that you can add stitches onto the needle for the arms....other than that you just knit each row. This is a true beginner project and the kids love it. As far as materials go you just need some grey worsted weight yarn and whatever eyes you wish to use. I also made a little red scarf for him in garter stitch by casting on 5 and knitting until it tied nicely around his neck.

Here are the basic instructions... but you can easily make him bigger or smaller by changing the original width of his legs:

I started by casting on 10 stitches and knitting until I felt that the leg was the proper length. I then left it on the needle and cast on 10 more for leg number two. When the legs were of equal length I knit across both to make the body (20 stitches). After knitting several inches the lower boy looked right and I started on the arms by casting on 12 stitches... knitting across the whole thing and casting on 12 more for a total of 44 stitches. Once again I knit until the arms looked to be about as thick as the legs. You then bind off 17 stitches... knit across the rest and bind off 17 more and knit across the last 10. You now have 10 on the needles and are ready to make the head. Increase a stitch at the beginning of each row until you have 18 on... then knit about 10 rows... and begin your decreases until you only have 10. Bind off. You make two of these.

To make the trunk I simply made a rectangle in garter stitch. I cast on 6 and knit until I thought it looked good for his body size. Instead of binding off I just threaded the yarn onto a needle and put it through the stitches to form a tube. I sewed up the tube and stitched it to the center of the face along with two googly eyes.

The ears probably could have been a bit bigger... but I like the mousy look. I cast on 5... knit the first row and then increased until I had 12 stitches on the needle. I knit 2 more rows of 12 and then decreased at the beginning of each row until I had 7 left. Bind off and after making two you are ready to sew them onto the head. I like a bit of an asymmetrical look when I make toys so I don't fret too much about how evenly placed they are.