Seth

this is a good combo. Frogging is always a mix of sadness and optimism for the next try, and Portable Headphone Dancefloor underlines the optimism

I've been turning cohozuna's head around in my head a lot. When I knit a toy, I have a very good grasp on the intended shape well before I start knitting it out; this is really an important step, as knitting is a slow process, and any shape adjustments you make aren't accurately seen until 3-8 rows later much of the time (and sometimes not until stuffing is used!). I probably spend at least equal time thinking about shapes as knitting them. Probably more, unless I end up frogging and trying a second time, which is very likely with the head here!

Sketching sometimes helps in this process, but I'm not sure it did much outside of working out the gills a bit more--which paved the way for the second image here. I want the gills to be fairly stiff but also as seamless as possible. I thought about just extending my planned foam skull to support them, but I think a double layer of knitting will be stiff enough while allowing for some hopefully organic movement. The real trick will be the seam grafting the side of the gill piece to the flesh near the spine--I want that to have as little pucker as possible, which will be tricky with how thick knit fabric is. The real goal of this picture, though, is to work out cast on points and grain. The grain is very important: it determines what shaping techniques are most invisible and how the fabric will drape and move. My planned method should produce the sleekest head and make the transition to the body seamless.

I also had a small brainwave on my commute today: a way to make the arms movable without sticks and with little hardware (I'd like this as squishy and huggable as possible). This might be feature creep, but it seems pretty straight forward and easy to implement: make the arm tube wide enough to fit another hand, then add a string or strap inside attached to simple L shaped 3D printed brackets slipped into the arms. Pulling on the strap should make the arms go up. It may also cause the sides of the fish to pull in a bit too, but I think I could live with that.