Forever I’ve wanted to make Opus the Octopus by Cate Carter-Evans. Yes, forever! I first saw this pattern in Knitty magazine way back when it was one of the only (if not THE only) online, free, knitting magazines, in the “deep fall” issue from 2014. I was attracted to the pattern for whatever reason … perhaps because I was living in landlocked Ohio, Or maybe not but whatever the reason, I’ve remained attracted to the pattern and I finally bit the bullet and bought yarn for my Opus.

I decided that I loved the Malabrigo colors the best for what I had envisioned for my octopus. I wanted it to be deep rusty red with a peach/light orange underbelly. The pattern calls for DK weight yarn held doubled but I decided to use a single strand of worsted weight (Rios). I chose colors 049 Jupiter (the red) and 695 Peachy (the peach) and I’m thrilled by my choices so far.

First up is knitting the “head” of the octopus. Simple after the initial 4 stitch cast on which was super fiddly. But once past the first couple of rounds, it’s simple. I am knitting on a US 5 needle. In the interest of full disclosure, I didn’t measure my gauge because it doesn’t matter in this case. Nobody’s going to wear this guy and the fabric is tight enough that the stuffing won’t peek through.

I got a bit stumped by the addition of the eyes, mostly because I didn’t have any safety eyes and for whatever reason, I couldn’t find them at work. But I went back to work and DID find them and came home prepared to get moving again. The pattern wants you to knit four eyelids from one strand of yarn … since I changed my yarn weight, I also changed the eyelids … I just knit with my yarn on the US 1 needles and they turned out fine! I may have chosen to make the eyelids a little bit smaller (perhaps cast on two fewer or one fewer stitches to make the eyes open up just a bit but I am satisfied with my finished eyes.

Yesterday I started to knit the underbelly. Again, the initial cast on of four stitches on four DPNs and then immediately starting to double the stitches with increases, is a bit fiddly but I managed through it and am at the point where it’s time to start knitting the tentacles … all eight of them!

According to the pattern, they want me to knit the legs intarsia-style, flat and then, I guess (because I don’t read ahead in the pattern) I’ll stuff them and seam them? I guess it wouldn’t be a horribly bad idea to read ahead a bit so I have some idea about what I’m going to be doing. I’ll let you know!

Gone knitting.