Please Help I am so lost!!!

[lolly51]

Hi everyone,

I am so confused, I knitting a cute lion and its the toes I am stuck on. I have highlighted the bit that has me stuck.

It says to purl the last stitch into the next stitch of the next toe. I have 5 separate toes which together gives me my 20 stitches. But I am losing 4 stitches when I purl from the last stitch into the first of the next toe. Which means I end up 16 not 20 grrrr. Does this explanation of the problem make sense! and what am I doing wrong ???

[salmonmac]

I count 6 pieces of 4sts each.

That gives you a total of 24 sts. When you follow the Joining Row directions there are 4 decrease giving you 20sts at the end of the row.
I’m not sure why there are 5 toes and an extra piece but I’m not all that clear on lion’s feet anyway. Maybe it becomes clear in the following directions?

[lolly51]

I see that now, I feel silly. Thank you for your help.

I am interested to see how they become toes lol guess I have to trust the pattern.

[salmonmac]

Well, yes, so am I. Let us know how it’s going. We’d also love to see a photo when you finish.

And by the way, don’t think twice about asking us or questioning a pattern. It helps to have several heads thinking on something like this. There are many mistakes in patterns too.

[lolly51]

This pattern has broke my heart. So difficult they made simple steps ten times harder and I am ready to throw it in the bin. I finally put it all together and its a mess. The head just flops all over the place, is there anything I can do to save it???

[salmonmac]

There are two things that might help: I’ve seen pattern that called for a plastic rod (the size of the straw but stiffer) running from the body through into the head. If this is meant for display, that’ll work. It if’s meant as a child’s toy, probably not a good idea.
The other possibility is to stitch the head more closely to the body. So you would make the neck thicker by attaching more of the head to more of the body.
The knitting looks fine but I can see that a floppy head would be disappointing.

[lolly51]

Ye, i nearly cried when i saw how the head looked. It is for a little boy, will try stitch it closer but not sure how that will look. I have no idea how the perfect lion in the picture was made with the pattern I just used grrr.

Thanks so much for the help : )

[lolly51]

Fixed him. So happy had to put a lot of stiches into his neck but got there in the end.

[salmonmac]

Ah, a much happier lion. Looks wonderful!

[Bluejaygirl5]

Great job. Love his cute little toes too! The litle
Boy will be over the moon and nice size to hug.
Salmonmac is awesome.