knit alien face-hugger *Yay! I finished it!!*

[kinkyknit]

 I want to knit a face hugger from the film "Alien" for my husband's birthday, but I'm having trouble thinking how to get the curved shape.  I've thought about using a textured stitch to make it more urrm... realistic  and I thought I'd put pipe cleaners in the legs to make them bendable, but how do you knit a curve? I can do decreasing and increasing, but that seems to give quite angular shapes.   

[ysolda]

I love the idea...
but I don't really know how to help, maybe if you can find a picture I can help figure it out though - sounds like fun

[Fozziebear54]

By curve, do you mean having the fabric bulge out kind of circularish, or do you mean wavy? Because for a bulgy thing, I think a series of increases in the middle of several rows would work. Like, increase by 1 stitch in the first knit row, 2 in the next knit row, then 3, and so on. Then decrease by the same amount after a certain amount of increases. I'm not sure about the wavy kind of curve, though.

[Duckie]

You could try short rows. I've never done them myself, but they're when you turn back before the end of a row. For example, if you'd cast on 30 sts, then you might knit 15, turn, knit 8, turn and work to the end of the row. Because one area has more rows than the others, it would "poof" - like gathering fabric.

[kinkyknit]

Here are some pictures I found of the face hugger (very gross, if you haven't seen the film, I'm sorry).  I'm not under any illusions that the FO will be particularly realistic,  I'd like it to be much less scary!  We saw a toy version in a comic shop and my husband joked that it could be my next knitting project. So, with his birthday coming soon....!


I'm thinking it'd be best to  make it in sections and then sew it together: legs and tail will be quite easy, it's the body that's throwing me, with the curvy bits at the tail end (it's hips?!)  The short row idea could work though for that bit, so thank you Duckie, and I like your idea Fozzie for the middle bit of the body.

Yay! it's coming together a bit in my head now!

[ysolda]

yeah i agree that short rows could work pretty well,
for the tail maybe look up knitted pleats, something my very old knitting books go into (apparently in the 40s a knitted pleated skirt was a very common article!) but it might give the right scaley effect

[ax174]

That sounds like something I'd make - except probably I'd sew it because of the odd shapes.  If you're willing to buy, this store sells plush face huggers that you can wrap around your head: http://www.silversnail.com. 



If the item is not listed, you can call and they will pack it up for you.  I know for sure they have some 'cause I was there the other day buying this:

[Maryam Ovaci]

Can we make this into a knit-along? XD I love this idea

[kinkyknit]

Can we make this into a knit-along? XD I love this idea

OMG! How cool would that be??!!!!!!!!! 

ax, thank you for the link, I'm pretty sure that's the toy we saw in the shop.  The reason I want to knit it is partly because the gauntlet (mitten??!) has been thrown down, and party because I'm a student and have no income, so I think my husband would appreciate a gift I've made and put time and love into.

[Fozziebear54]

Be sure to post pictures of this when you're done! I'm curious to see how it turns out.