Magical Unicorn by Sincerely Louise

Magical Unicorn

Knitting
April 2017
DK (11 wpi) ?
22 stitches and 30 rows = 4 inches
in stockinette stitch
US 6 - 4.0 mm
4.0 mm (G)
13 cm (5 in) long, excluding horn and tail.
English

Fill your knitting with myth, magic and rainbows when you knit Sincerely Louise’s fantastic unicorn. We’re pretty sure that most people love unicorns and it’s pretty obvious why – they’re gorgeous, often rainbow coloured and illustrated in stories of myth and fantasy. Louise Walker’s sweet unicorn is filled with interesting techniques, from working on separate balls of yarn to fun colourwork and even a little bit of steeking!

Use your Unicorn Knit Kit or:
Yarn A White DK yarn
Yarn B Gold DK yarn
Oddments of multi-coloured DK yarn for Mane
Scrap yarn
A pair of 4mm needles
A set of five 4mm double-pointed needles
A 4mm crochet hook
2 toy eyes
Scrap yarn
Toy stuffing

Errata
(added by Cablemabel)

Body:

  • “Wind a small ball of Yarn A”: this should be at least 3yd/152cm.
  • Delete the first description of row 31 (this is repeated later, after row 30).
  • Saying that intarsia is like making a thumb hole on a mitten is confusing, because with intarsia you twist the yarns so as not to leave a hole. So delete those three lines, and work rows 30-36 as three vertical strips of knitting with holes between them, although they are joined at their base and top.
  • Row 36: add “cut scrap yarn”
  • Row 37: You will probably end up cutting the main yarn and finishing with the small ball of yarn here, but check before cutting!
  • Row 43: It should say: K1, then (k2tog) 3 times (because the printed version is easily misread as “(k1, k2tog) 3 times).

Horn:

  • The gold yarn in the free magazine kit is impossible to work with due to fraying, unless you knot every cut end as soon as it is cut. If you can make the knot small and tight enough, you can just get it through the eye of a large tapestry needle so as to sew up before it’s all frayed away. If you cannot get the knot through the needle to sew up, then sew up with sewing thread.

To Make Up:

  • If you are using the eyes from the free magazine kit, attach them to the face BEFORE stuffing. This is because they are a nut and bolt system, and the nuts/washers have to fit on the back of the face fabric.
  • Use a pencil to poke the stuffing into the legs and horn.
  • You may find after completing the mane that it has an unsightly bald gap down the middle. You can resolve this by taking a thread or mane-hair from each side of the gap, and knotting them tightly together across the gap with a reef knot. Repeat this with more pairs of mane-hairs until the gap is no longer visible.