Snail II

Hey folks!

This project is actually a little old, but I finished making a second version of the Snail torus! I've been delaying posting pictures of this so that he would be more of a suprise for his intended owner. He's now arrived safe and well down in London with Helen, so it's time for pictures!

Design-wise, there are a couple of alterations from the first version("Spiral"). Aside from a different colour scheme, the shaping on the tail is a little better - Spiral's tail was trying to be a little more complicated than it needed to be, and didn't quite work out. Similarly the shaping on the head and particularly the face is a lot simpler and I think works a bit better. That said, I really liked the expression Spiral had, but I don't think I could actually reproduce it. Mostly likely it was more a fluke of tension working out just right than anything, certainly I can't claim to have planned it. I think the tail might have been quite a bit longer too, though not by any deliberate decision.

I'm still not entirely convinced by my knitting of the short rows in places though, I don't think I got the tension quite right with the wraps, but hopefully that's just me, since I know where to look for them, and it won't bother other people. And I'm still not entirely happy with how straight the shell was. I'm not good at sewing at the best of times, and this is a particularly delicate


The big difference really is that this time I took notes properly, so hopefully will be able to write up a coherent pattern of this. I'm very happy with how the two snails have turned out, and I'm very keen to see how interested people will be in this design. (After I posted the first snail, I got a very nice message from a knitter who keeps giant african land snails - I had no idea you could keep snails as pets!)

Have fun!
Hugh.