We randomly have a lot of royal purple tulle, and so I suggested to DH that he could be an eggplant for Halloween. He loved the idea, but said he needed a stem & leaves, so I knit some.
There weren’t any patterns that were at all what I was looking for, so I made one up.
My original pattern has 4 leaves, and I really wish it had 5, so here’s the pattern re-written for 5 leaves. This (knitted with chunky yarn) fits an average man’s head (not tightly). For someone smaller, use smaller yarn & needles.
CO 8 sts on sz 8 needles.
I-cord 1”
Switch to sz 10 needles, I cord 2 rows.
Join in round, knit one row.
*KF&B* repeat around row.
K 1 row.
*KF&B, K1*.
K 1 row.
*KF&B K2*.
K 1 row.
*KF&B, K4*.
K 1 row.
Make every 4th stitch a purl to delineate the leaves and their veins. Keep these stitches as purls throughout, increasing around them (use stitch markers if necessary).
Continue increase pattern (keeping purl ditches as established) until 80 sts.
Knit 1” (I didn’t do this and really wish I had)
Knit back & forth on the first 16 stitches to make one leaf:
Sl1, K6, P1, K8
Sl1, Purl.
Sl1, K6, p1, K6, K2 tog. (15sts)
Sl1, purl.
Sl1, K1, PSSO, K5, p1, K5, K2 tog (13 sts)
s1, purl.
Sl1, K1, PSSO, K4, p1, K4, K2 tog (11 sts)
s1, purl.
Sl1, K1, PSSO, K3, p1, K3, K2tog. (9 sts)
s1, purl.
Sl1, K1, PSSO, K2, p1, K2, K2tog. (7 sts)
s1, purl.
Sl1, K1, PSSO, K1, p1, K1, K2tog. (5 sts)
s1, purl.
Sl1, K1, PSSO, p1, K2tog. (3 sts)
Last row: sl1, P 1, PSSO, K1, BO 1, tie off last stitch.
Repeat this for the other 4 leaves. Wear & be fruity or vegetable-ey as you please! (Though botanically speaking, they’re all fruits.)
To make this into a strawberry cap, knit the main part of the cap an extra inch or so before splitting off the leaves. Then do the leaves each as 8 sts wide instead of 16.
For a tomato, split the leaves off after an inch, but again make them 8 sts wide, and do extra straight rows between each decrease to make them longer). This gives 10 leaves instead of 5.
