In 2022, I got in touch with an old friend I hadn’t spoken to for a few years. You know how it is – you lose touch, then it seems to awkward to message out of the blue, so you don’t do it. But I was thinking of her one day and I *did* do it and honestly, only good can come of telling a friend you’re thinking of them.
Anyway, as is often my way, since we were reconnected I wanted to send her knitwear. As luck would have it, she has two actual cherub children who I thought would look very fetching in some dinosaur balaclavas.
I found The Dino Balaclava (Ravelry link) by Jenny Nicola at Style Me Cozy (Instagram link). It calls for bulky yarn and 9mm needles – after some experimentation I found that holding three DK yarns together gave me the right result. So not only are they cute, they use up those oddments that are otherwise languishing, plus you get a lovely marled finish.
Credit to Knit One, Spin Too for the word ‘oddments.
We hadn’t spoken since then but, at Christmas, I heard a song on the radio that prompted another resurgence of our chat. Then she sent me a pic of her oldest wearing his balaclava! You guys know what a great feeling it is when you see that someone is actually using a thing you made for them, don’t you? And listen, since the time that I made them, she’s made another human. And so it came to pass the need to knit another dino balaclava for the little one.
I held together some fleecy variegated yarn, and two shades of blue (one of which ran out and was subbed for green) for the main part. I had a chunky purple and semi- chunky green that worked for the spikes. I made it over two evenings – it was done in a flash – before washing and posting out.
It used up about 70g of yarn and is adorable to boot. The laid out flat photo really clearly shows the change from turquoise to green at the crown. Variation in skin tone is completely normal in the animal kingdom, even for dinosaurs.
Before posting, I tried the finished object on Deadpool and this might be my favourite part of the project. He’s so furious!
I also tried on one of the early ones and thought you might enjoy the result.
The Crafty Yarnster 