Last week was busy, with little time for crafting or blogging. My sister arrived on January 10 for a one-week vacation. We went to see three movies (Into the Woods, Unbroken, Selma), which is more movies than I usually see in the theater in an entire year. We also watched Blu rays at my house; she saw Night at the Museum for the first time and I saw How to Train Your Dragon for the first time. We played lots of Pandemic, a board game
Official Stats
- Pattern: Tribble by Abigail
- Yarn (left to right, top to bottom in the picture below)
- 36.1 yards Knit Picks Dishie Multi in Cottage
- 34.2 yards Knit Picks Dishie Multi in Tug Boat
- 36.1 yards Knit Picks Dishie Multi in Sunflower
- 33 yards Lily Sugar’n Cream Ombres in Beach Ball
- 32.3 yards Knit Picks Dishie Multi in Nettle
- 40.5 yards Lily Sugar’n Cream Ombres in Landscape
- 34.2 yards Knit One, Crochet Too 2nd Time Cotton in Scottish Moor
- 34.2 yards Knit Picks Dishie Multi in Daisy
- 36.1 yards Knit Picks Dishie Multi in Lodge
- 34.8 yards Lily Sugar’n Cream Stripes in American Stripes
- 38 yards Knit Picks Dishie Multi in Heat Wave
- 38 yards Knit Picks Dishie Multi in Thistle
- 41.2 yards Peaches & Creme Ombres in Faded Denim
- 38.6 yards Bernat Handicrafter Twists in Holidays
- 39.9 yards Knit Picks Dishie Multi in Maps
- 36.1 yards Knit Picks Dishie Multi in Waves
- 39.7 yards Rowan Purelife in Revive
- 39 yards Lily Sugar’n Cream Ombres in Strawberry
- Needles: US 9 / 5.5 mm
- Made for Christmas 2015
- Finished Dimensions: varies
- Ravelry Project Page
About this Project
The name of this pattern – Tribble – is a Star Trek reference (for a complete history of Tribbles on Star Trek, see the Star Trek wiki entry). Tribbles are cuddly little creatures, that seem to make great pets, until you discover that they multiply quicker than rabbits.
I assume this knitting pattern is named Tribble because you can’t make just one. I also wonder if the pattern designer knew how the Tribbles were made:
Tribbles are made from a piece of “figure-eight shaped” fake fur, sewn up to make a ball about five inches in diameter. The ball is filled with foam rubber; some tribbles were made by sewing a decapitated walking toy dog inside the fur skin, and the toy activated to make the tribble crawl, as revealed in the DVD commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda for “The Trouble with Tribbles”. (from the Star Trek Wiki article linked above)
To make the knitted tribble, you knit a strip, sew the ends together, sew the edges together and gather the edges. This forms a swirly disc reminiscent of a figure eight!
When I posted about this project in my UFO Inventory, I had completed one Tribble (American stripes, top center in the picture above), had knit 10 strips but not sewed them together yet (the nine on the left in the picture above, plus the Strawberry one on the bottom right of the group on the right), and had one on the needles (Heat Wave, bottom center in the picture above). Not only did I finish all of those, I knit 6 more of them this week (everything on the right except Strawberry). They really do seem to multiply as quick as their namesake!
I did not refer back to the pattern when I finished these over the last week. I probably should have, because I did something wrong in sewing them. You can see that the first one I did — American Stripes — makes a nice flat disc while the others are more scrunched up. I can’t get them to lay flat. While writing this blog post, I reread the pattern and I think my problem is that I didn’t pull the running stitch tight enough. I pulled it pretty tight, but then sewed one end of the side to the other. They might not be neat little discs, but they will still work to scrub dishes and that’s the purpose after all!
