about contact news blog shop help

or the Atlantic Northeast Christmas Tree Jellyfish Tutorial

I invented this jellyfish ornament for a holiday swap in 2007.  I named the pattern "Fork-full" for my late, great, and incredibly crafty but not terribly gastronomically adventurous grandfather, Ben, who once snorted on hearing that my father had eaten jellyfish while traveling overseas, "Hunh, forkfull of snot!"  To spread the holiday cheer further, here's the jellyfish ornament.

The yarn is Karabella Stardust - it looks like a jellyfish just sitting on the shelf, so if you can find it, you've got a head start. Stardust looks and feels like a tube made out of a tutu, and has all the endearing and not-so endearing qualities one might expect from knitting with tutu yarn. Sparkly! Sweaty! Anything on the plasticky side of the spectrum that says jellyfish to you will work fine. The yarn wrapper calls for size 11 needles, and I worked on 4 size 9 double-points. Here we go:

Cast on 10 stitches using the knitting-on method. Leave a fairly long tail.


Bind off all but one.

Repeat this nine more times so you have 10 little fringies.

Being careful not to twist, slip 4 of the stitches to a second dpn.


Join as for I-cord and K2tog around, so you've got 5 stitches left and the fringies stick out.


Work 6 more rounds of I-cord.


Turn and Knit 1 round.

Being careful not to twist, transfer to three double-pointed needles (2 sts on the first 2 needles, 1 on the last).

Now comes the cap -

Round one: Knit into the front and back (kfb) of each stitch.

Round two: kfb, k1 around

Round three: kfb, k2 around

Round four: kfb, k3 around

Round five : kfb, k4 around

Round six: kfb, k5 around

Round seven: kfb, k6 around

Rounds eight and nine: k

Bind off using the k2tog tbl, sl repeat bind off. (Translation: knit two together through the back loops, slip the stitch from the right hand needle to the left. Repeat until only one stitch remains, and pull through.)

Sew in the yarn-ends, ending so that the ends come out of the top of each and double as the tree-hanging cord.

p.s.  Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus!

about | contact | news | blog | wholesale | stockists | shop | techniques | errata