Knit your own zombie - review

Book Depository Link, Ravelry Link, Dublin City Public Libraries Record

By Fiona Goble

The cover of the book talks about over 1000 combinations and it's probably true.  There are 9 basic patterns, 4 mash-up ideas and that would probably give you ideas for many more.
You basically knit a head, upper body and lower body and using Velcro attach them to each other, the arms attach using press-studs.  The pieces are knit flat, seamed and stuffed individually.  The author opens each pattern with some media examples of each type. 

The first pattern is for a classic zombie.  Only one eye, removable entrails and his ribs showing this one is pretty classic. There's also a jacket trousers and a rat pattern as accessories.

Frankenstein's monster is up next.  The pattern even includes a 40mm nut and bolt. He has slightly different trousers and jacket pattern included

Then we have a zombie cop with a thigh-bone truncheon, shirt, trousers, hat, boot and simple cuffs.

The village idiot mash-up shows how you can use a variety of the patterns to create a new monster and maybe spark some ideas

Zombie fatale is the first female character we encounter.  Her heart is removable and she has shiny bead nails.  A beehive hairdo  topped with a hat and a dress completes this ensemble.  She also has a shoe and bandage

Dracula makes an appearance too, looking quite like Sesame street's count. He has a cane, waistcoat, cape and a bat as accessories

Next we have another mash-up, the mother of the bride, another opportunity to mix and match

The zombie chef is quite scary with full chef gear including two knives.

Next up is the biker chic zombie mash-up.

Zombie gravedigger owes a lot to Baron Samedi described as female because of the purple hat, this animated skeleton screams voodoo to me.  Hat, spade and rope accessories.

Zombie rock star has removable brains and long hair, along with a jacket and trousers.

Last mash-up is of yoga zombie mostly using the zombie gravedigger parts.

Final pattern is for the bandages to make any of the zombies into a mummy.

In common with a lot of her books you have to be prepared to do some sewing with this and there's a fair bit of both sewing and detail embroidery to keep a lot of people busy.  Would be a great gift for a zombie lover or for something to make for one.  You could get several birthdays out of making parts on a regular basis.

World of Knitted Toys

Book Depository Link; Ravelry Link

Impressions: Some of the patterns are pretty interesting, some a little off but overall not a bad selection of people and animals.  The book starts with some basic techniques and a generic person pattern that you can then dress as you see fit or according to the tableau you have in mind.  There's also a guide to ease of patterns in the front.


Types of patterns: Toys; People and Animals

Number of Patterns: 47

Colour/Black & White: colour with black and white charts where necessaryl.

Schematics: no

Target Audience: beginner with some skills to intermediate

How to knit guide: some of the basics are given

Experimental/Classical/Modern: pretty classical

Comments on patterns: the animals range from kittens to koalas and almsot everything in between, it's not a bad book if you want to play with making animals.  I'd say you'd get a fair number of patterns from this one.  She does explain the ease or lack thereof of knitting the pattern and what you would need to know to do it quite clearly at the beginning of each pattern.

Some of the animals are more realistic than others, but they all would probably appeal to most kids.

Buy/Borrow: If you're into making animals I'd pick this one up, it's a useful pattern book and I could see variations on some of the ideas being useful.  I love how she uses some textural variations to give the idea of the animal.

Where found: Dublin City Public Libraries has a few copies