Ringneck Snake Bracelet

Ringneck snake bracelet

UPDATE: I figured out another way to do the eyes today, May 20, 2017. See the end for details.

Ringneck Snake with seed bead eyes

I got an icord mill recently after reading about them on TECHknitting. I quickly found out that the most efficient way to use that thing is to go ahead and use up a whole skein of yarn once you get started. I had some DK weight mercerized cotton that rubbed black dye off on everything. So I decided to just turn the whole thing into cord. Then I washed the cord and made it stop bleeding. Now I can use it for stuff. I made drawstrings, eye glasses keepers, and then this cute little thing. It's stretchy enough to pull over your hand. Here's how I made it.

Cut off a length of pre-made icord

Start with a length of black icord from mill. I just held it up to my wrist and guessed how long to make it, allowing for overlap and unraveling.

Cut a length long enough to pull yarn out of both ends to rework the tail and head end and still have enough to reach around a wrist. Mine was 8” after unraveling.

Unravel about 19" of yarn on each end.
Place live stitches on small DPNs. 

Start with the tail end. Pick out the cut yarn. unravel 19” of yarn. Put live stitches on needles (size 2 DPNS). Knitting as icord decrease to 3 stitches with k2tog on middle stitches. Knit a bit, then decrease to two stitches and knit a few more rounds. Pull yarn end through 2 stitches left.

Tail

On other end rip back similarly and put the live stitches on needles. With some bright yellow yarn knit a single round. Tie ends together on back of the needle and pull tails into the tube with a yarn needle. Icord knit the black yarn 4 more rows. Thread the tail on a needle and pull yarn through all 4 stitches. Sew the yarn tail into the bottom of the head to make it more head-shaped. 

With a sewing needle and black thread sew black sequins on the sides for eyes. (I tried beads but it looked too bug-eyed.)

Thread yarn tail at the tail end down an inch and sew tail to body just below neck ring to make into a bracelet. On the second one I made I didn't have any yarn tail left so I sewed it with the black thread from sewing on the sequin eyes.  I sewed the bottom of the neck to the tail to cover up the color jog in the yellow yarn.

Ring Neck

I'm not calling this a realistic knit snake because Ringneck Snakes also have a bright colored ventral side. This is black all the way around. Still, I kind of like it.








Here's the details on the new eyes with seed beads. After knitting the 4 black rows for the head run the working yarn through the live stitches with a yarn needle but slip them onto 2 needles instead of pulling it up. Sew to seed beads together with sewing thread and knot it. Leave two long tails to work with.

Seed beads sewn together with black thread

 Now back to the nose. The outside needles here are the 4 live stitches on the outside. The leftmost loop on the bottom two needles are the working yarn that's threaded through the live loops. The middle needle shows where you're going to poke those two seed beads. Cram them in there under those two loops of yarn. Only the outside of them will stick out, most of the beads are inside the head. The two loops of yarn will fall into the depression between the beads. Sew them there with the tails of the thread. Then run the thread back to the yellow ring so you can use it to sew the tail to the head.

Two outside needles hold live stitches.
Middle needle through loops of the row below to
show where the beads/eyes go.

Now finish the nose by taking out the needles and pulling up the last four stitches with the working yarn that should be threaded through them already. Work the tail back to the ring neck with a yarn needle. I split the plies and tied a knot back there for extra security. Finally sew the neck to the tail with the sewing thread to hide the beginning/end of the ring. Tie it good and run the tails into the cord. Done! It's a bit bulgy in the eyeballs, but it's passably cute. Also hard to photograph. I would try taking better photos with softer light but I already mailed it to somebody.

I'm thinking about doing another one with a duplicate stitched yellow belly.