Crab torus

The crab torus!
This has been on hold for a couple of weeks because I ran out of googly eyes, but it is at last complete.
I knitted all the pieces seperately(thirteen in all), so there was quite a lot of sewing together involved, but I think my seams are getting a lot neater.
I'm really happy with how the legs turned out - they all have little 'knee' joints which bend at different angles to make them fan out. I wasn't sure how well these would show at the time, but I think they're just angled enough. Of course the curve of the body helps with this too.


My favourite part has to be the claws though. They start out with a triangular piece to let them meet the body at quite a sharp angle, then many short rows are used to make the elbow curves. At the start of the claws they seperate into two two pieces, which I then sewed together with the outside part overhanging the inner piece to give it a good pinchy look. One slight problem is that the way I worked all this out meant there was a big seam along the outside of the claws. It I was doing it again I'd rework this to hide the seam on the inside.


The eye stalks I really like too. I put little lengths of curtain wire into them to hold them upright, which makes them nice and springy, as well as fairly unbreakable. I'm not entirely sure if this is child-safe, it might just be possible to get the wire parts out, and they have a slightly sharp edge where I cut them. But then I guess all the small pieces which could be pulled off would probably be more of a problem. I very much like how it feels though, and will try using it more in future projects.

Isn't he(or she) cute though?

Hugh.