On Tuesday I mentioned that I’d stayed with Lovely Littlest when I visited Unravel. Lovely Littlest has only just moved into a new flat, so I wanted to take her a flat warming present. The obvious choice, of course, was a knitted cactus collection. Well, actually it wasn’t. I was going to make a smaller plant, but got carried away knitting the pot. It turned out big enough to wear as a hat…
It would probably have been quicker to start again, but now I’d made it, I decided it would look nice filled with a few cacti. Sure there had to be patterns for knitted cactus out there, I decided not to reinvent the wheel – unless I didn’t like any of them – and looked on line for knitted cactus patterns.
I found a free cactus pattern from Simply Knitting with some jolly nice knitted cacti on it, so set about knitting them…
Then all I needed to knit was some gravel, stuff it and sew it all together…
Just in case any of you find yourself in need of a knitted bowl full of cacti – or even a single knitted cactus plant – the link to the Simply Knitting cactus pattern is here and I’ve jotted the pot/bowl and gravel instructions below.
Note: The cacti are knitted in DK. Bowl and gravel in Aran weight. Plant pot is approximately 10″/25cm diameter. I used approximately 75g Aran yarn for the plant pot and 25g for the gravel.
Knitted plant pot and gravel:
Abbreviations
- k – knit
- kfb – knit into front and back of stitch
- p – purl
- p3tog – purl 3 together
- sts – stitches
Needles – 5mm circular or DPNs depending on what you prefer to work with.
Pot
Cast on 6 stitches using circular cast on method. Tutorial for cast on here.
- Round 1: kfb in every stitch (12 sts)
- Round 2: knit
- Round 3: kfb in every stitch (24 sts)
- Round 4 – 6: knit
- Round 7: kfb in every stitch (48 sts)
- Round 8 – 12: knit
- Round 13: kfb in every stitch (96 sts)
- Round 14 onward: knit until pot is desired height plus roll over at top
Gravel
Cast on 6 stitches using circular cast on method, Tutorial for cast on here.
- Round 1: kfb in every stitch (12 sts)
- Round 2: purl
- Round 3: kfb in every stitch (24 sts)
- Rounds 4: purl
- Round 5: *(k1, p1, k1) into one stitch, p3tog, repeat from * to end of round
- Rounds 6: purl
- Round 7: kfb in every stitch (48 sts)
- Round 8: purl
- Round 9 as row 5
- Rounds 10 and 11: purl
- Round 12: *p3tog, (k1, p1, k1) into one stitch, repeat from * to end of row
- Round 13: kfb in every stitch (96 sts)
- Round 14: purl
- Round 15: as row 5
- Round 16: purl
- Round 17: as row 12
- Repeat rounds 14 to 17 once more
- Round 22: purl
- Cast off
Sew in the loose ends of the pot and the gravel. Put stuffing in pot and gravel on top…
…decide on placement of each cactus…
Sew cacti onto the grave then put gravel back on top of stuffing and sew in position…
… and you’re finished…
Knitted gravel – who knew?
What a fantastic idea for a housewarming – and no prickly bits.
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And harder to kill 🙂
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Fantastic idea. Great knit 🙂
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Thank you 🙂
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Looks great, what will you think of next? Hope the cold is on the mend. xxx
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Thank you. Cold not to bad – although, obviously man-flu is far less bothersome to us girls.
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Love it, and I bet lovely littlest did, too!
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Thank you. She did 🙂
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That is amazing 🙂 I definitely need to do this now for a friend! (In all my copious free time…)
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Ha ha! Yes, I’m swamped by copious free time! On the bright side it isn’t too time consuming and I was very please with the result.
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This is ace!
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Thank you 🙂
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That is the most cutest gift for a new home. Cheerful and happy all year round. How awesome. And she never has to worry about watering them, they will always be their pretty cute self.
Thanks for this, I am bookmarking it for sure.
🙂
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Thank you. Glad you like it. I’m wondering though if it will gather much dust and did try to sew it nice and securely, so it could stand a wash.
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It may, but I think a regular gentle shake should keep most of the dust off. Probably not nearly as dusty there as here. Or else a gentle hand wash.
I still love it. It is super cute. 🙂
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Let’s hope so.
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Brilliant! Child friendly cacti! What a fab idea. 😊
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Ha ha! Never thought of the child friendly aspect 🙂
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I do now after an eventful visit to my Nanny’s house and trying to remove a cactus prickle from an inquisitive child’s finger! 😂
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Oh dear. Thought it was the voice of experience talking in your first comment 😦
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Everything that I wanted to say has already been said by others 🙂 Love, love, love this!
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Thank you 🙂
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I Love this! 😀 Wow you have some fantastic ideas 😀
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So cute! I’ll LL smiles every time she sees it. 😀
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let’s hope so 🙂
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Like everyone else I think this is an excellent house warming present – the house plant that never dies! Now if you could just come up with something leafy rather than prickly ……. 🙂
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The house plan that never dies. Sounds like a horror movie 😉 I was thinking more leafy in the first place and haven’t forgotten – so watch this space. Although may be a while.
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I adore these! 😍 sooo tempted!! You are so creative!
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Go for it – doesn’t take too long and don’t need watering when they’re finished.
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I’ve seen knitted flower but never 🌵! Ingenuous! They look like they might even be prickly too 😀
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Thank you. Although to be fair it was the fact I’d knitted the pot too big that made me think of filling it with cacti – so not so ingenious on my part.
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A fab little gift 🙂
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Thank you 🙂
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They look fab! Love it… and no need to water them 😊
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Absolutely and with my track record I should have knitted them for myself!
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Such fun! Even I couldn’t kill that cactus!
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Thank you. Ha ha! Yes, LL called it ‘a plant I can be trusted with’ 🙂
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