As promised, Belle, my little ornament angel, now has a very big sister. Annabelle, a 10 inch tall treetop angel, took a couple of days to complete, mostly because I was creating, frogging and re-creating her as I went. I've always loved the crocheted angels and decided I wanted to loom knit something similar. Never mind that there was no pattern to be found for a knitted angel for neither the looms nor needles, or at least not one like I wanted so I decided to create one. My angel is made of the following separate components and then joined together: halo/head/body piece, arms, 2 joined wings, a skirt and skirt ruffle. Three different Knifty Knitter looms were used: 5 & 8 peg spool loom, 12 peg flower loom & 24 peg blue round loom. This is a brief summary of what I did:The halo/head/body piece was done on the KK 8 peg spool loom. A combination of twisted knit, purl and flat knit stitches were used to shape and give the illusion of a face, hair and halo. The neck was formed by stuffing a cotton ball in the head and tying a strand of yarn around the neck area. The arms are I-cord made on 4 pegs of the KK spool loom and pulled from the inside through stitches in the “shoulder” area of the body. The skirt, done on three different looms, was the most complex of all the pieces. The bottom ruffle was done first by making a very long piece of I-cord prepared on the KK spool loom using 3 pegs, then attaching it to the blue KK loom by pulling the stitches onto the pegs as a cast on edge. Two types of lace stitches were used in the main part of the skirt then switching to flat knit and decreasing to 12 pegs, the skirt was transferred to the 12 peg flower loom. Once on the 12 peg loom, the waist of the skirt was finished by using a combination of twisted knit, flat knit and decrease stitches. Finally, the wings were completed in decreasing rows of lace stitches and attached at the corners to make a unified set. The various pieces were then joined. Fabric stiffener was added while the piece was blocked on a large plastic soft drink cup and then left to dry over night.
This was a challenging project, but I absolutely love doing things like this. I’m currently working on loom knitted snowflakes, which are also a bit of a challenge, but they are coming along nicely. I’ll post the results as soon as I’m finished.This picture shows the size difference between the two angels. Annabelle (right) has a wing span of 7 inches and is 10 inches tall. Belle (left) is only 2½ inches tall.
