I’ve always been intrigued by dinosaurs. As a kid, my favorites were the Triceratops and Brontosaurus (now known as the Brachiosaurus), both herbivores. Maybe it’s because I’ve become a meat eater again, but I am suddenly drawn to the Tyrannosaurus rex. I have plenty of patterns for knitting dinosaurs, but thinking of the T. rex, I realized that what I’m really interested in is knitting for dinosaurs.

So I bought myself a T. rex and some yarn. Her name is Tiny.

While I’ve done plenty of knitting for critters in the last year or so, I wanted this to be different. As soon as I found Tiny, I was in love. She is so striking looking that I couldn’t settle on just one project. I decided to knit whatever I felt like, but instead of sewing things onto her, I would make every piece removable. That way I could change her clothes and knit as many things as I wanted to for her.

As I knitted, I imagined that Tiny had a loving aunt, one who was fairly new to knitting but enthusiastically making things for everyone in her family. She would start with scarves, graduate to hats, then branch out to mittens once she felt a little more confident.

The knitting bug is not easily fed, however, and it wouldn’t be long before Aunt Rexie would go for the Big Project and make her beloved niece a sweater like the one Velma wears on Scooby-Doo. (Tiny loves that show.) Aunt Rexie was understandably proud of herself for finishing it, even if the results weren’t quite what she expected.

Aunt Rexie will keep knitting for Tiny, but it may be a while before she tackles another big project. She has to get her confidence back (and her niece’s measurements) before she tries again. In the meantime, she’ll knit some dish cloths to keep her hand in.

Technical notes for the curious: all of these pieces are my own invention, created using what I know about knitting for humans. Yarns are fingering weight or sock yarns knitted on size 0 needles. The sweater was particularly interesting to make, because the arm holes are horizontal instead vertical in order to accommodate Tiny’s forward reaching arms. It took a couple of tries to get things right, but the key is most definitely: 1) getting the gauge from a swatch and 2) careful measurement of the T. rex in order to design the pattern.