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Knit a Topsy Turvy Dinosaur

March 30, 2024 by Sarah White

I sometimes feel like I don’t share a lot of knitting patterns that are just fun. I try to offer things that are useful and pretty and that will help you build skills if you need to build skills. Even food-shaped pillows and placemats are useful in a way while they are whimsical.

I shared some basic toys the other day and I want to do more of that, whether you’re knitting for a kid, for yourself or for someone else who hasn’t lost their sense of play.

So in that spirit I bring you this amazing pattern for a dinosaur egg that turns into a triceratops or stegosaurus, your choice.

The design is from Kristy Roberts and the dinosaur is cute enough in its own right for this pattern to be well worth sharing, but the topsy-turvy aspect makes it that much more fun.

(If you check this pattern out on Ravelry you can even see a little gif of the project flipping, which I will admit I watched for longer than I needed to. The still images above give you the idea, though.)

The pattern calls for DK weight yarn, but of course you could use a different weight bearing in mind it will alter the finished size. As is the dino looks fairly small, but the pattern page doesn’t indicate its finished size.

This is definitely a project you could use leftover yarn for, and the designer suggests acrylic just because you can get so many fun colors. No one knows what colors the dinosaurs really were, right?

The project is knit flat and you can see from the photos that the egg flips and goes inside the dino’s stomach, which provides it a bit of stuffing.

You can grab the pattern from the Ravelry link above.

And if you love toys that flip like this, you should definitely check out Susan B. Anderson’s book Topsy-Turvy Inside Out Knit Toys.

[Photo: Kristy Roberts]

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Have you read?

Book Review: The Wandering Knitter

Knitting and travel are two hobbies that are highly compatible. Travel often involves waiting or time spent on planes, trains, boats, etc., time that can easily be filled by knitting, a portable and productive craft you can do most anywhere (and yes, you can take your knitting on a plane most of the time). 

Krista Ann combines knitting and traveling regularly and ended up visiting every continent in 2022 with her knitting needles along for the ride. The Wandering Knitter explores travel, knitting and learning new knitting skills no matter where you are. 

This isn’t a book for beginners, but if you’ve wanted to learn techniques like brioche, cables, lace, colorwork, mitered squares and short rows, there’s a set of more beginner level patterns followed by ones that are bigger, more detailed or required a little more skill. For example a brioche washcloth is the beginner pattern, while a brioche sweater (with unexplained exceptionally long sleeves) is the stepped up project. A basic mesh lace scarf becomes a more complex lace kerchief. A giant mitered square cowl graduates to a mitered square tote bag. 

Interspersed among the patterns are essays about traveling to different continents and what she saw there. There are also tips for traveling with your knitting and tips for reading charts, but no tutorials for knitting skills (other than a written explanation of how mosaic knitting works). 

Some of the projects would be useful to have when traveling, such as fingerless gloves, a warm headband or a colorwork hat. The travel angle is an interesting hook for a book, but I would have enjoyed essays more about specific incidents or shopping for yarn in a different country or something more than the general essays about things she’s liked and places she’d like to go back to. 

Still, if you’re looking for a skill building book that doesn’t focus on the basics but gives you some wearable, attractive accessories, this book is a good one to check out. Just maybe make the sleeves shorter if you knit the sweater. 

About the book: 128 pages, paperback, 20 patterns. Published 2026 by Quarry Books. Suggested retail price $24.99.

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