A super realistic knitting pattern for a whale – knit flat & step-by-step written instructions
Let me introduce you to Humpy, the knitted humback whale. My goal was to create a realistic representation of a humpback whale while still keeping the pattern accessible to a wider range of knitters. This whale is knitted flat, and then the 5 parts are sewn together. A 16-page PDF walks you through all the steps with written instructions, detailed close-up pictures, and video tutorials.
This pattern is geared toward intermediate knitters. Seen by themselves, most rows aren’t especially overwhelming. While a couple of more exotic techniques are required, most of them are just needed a single time. It is seaming such a complex shape with various different edge stitches that is the true challenge. Of course, I included video tutorials to speed you along.
It takes me around 5-6 hours to knit the various pieces for this humback whale and roughly 2-3 hours for the seaming. I would call it an entertaining and varied knitting pattern with a few challenging rows and many easy passages of plain stockinette stitch in between.
Materials required for this whale pattern
I knitted my whale using fingering-weight yarn and 2.5 mm knitting needles. This results in a whale that is around 33 cm/13 in long and 9 cm/3.5 in wide. Feel free to use bigger (or smaller) needles and a different yarn quality if you want a bigger or smaller whale.
- A slightly fluffy fingering weight yarn in 3 colors. Dark blue (25 g), white (15 g), and a greyish tone (5 g). I used a custom dyed merino (60%), silk (20%), yak (20%) blend (100 g = 366 m/400 yds) by Greenery Wolle. You will also need scrap yarn in a dark color to embroider the mouth.
- Double-pointed needles in size 2.5 mm (US size 1) or circular needles of the same size.
- scissors & a tapestry needle
- toy stuffing (I am using hollow fiber polyester)
- stitch markers
- blocking boards
- 2 safety eyes (mine have a diameter of 1 cm)
Knitting techniques required
Please bear in mind that the list of required techniques may seem long, but very few of them are needed more than once or twice. E.g., there are literally just two rows where you need the brioche decreases and one where you need to increase. On top of that, there are detailed tutorials available for all these techniques here on my blog and on my YouTube channel.
- KLL = knit left loop
- KRL = knit right loop
- K2tog = knit two together
- SSK = slip, slip, knit
- P2tog = purl two together
- SSP = slip, slip, purl
- M1L = make one left
- M1R = make one right
- K3tog cent = knit three together centered
- sInc = stacked increase
- sDec = stacked decrease
Brioche stitches
- SL1yo = slip one stitch purlwise and add a
yarn over - BRK = brioche knit
- BRP = brioche purl
- Bsk2p = brioche slip knit 2 pass
- bk3tog = brioche knit 3 together
- brkyobrk = brioche knit, yarn over, brioche
knit
The whale is finished with a bit of easy embroidery (chain stitches and French knots), and I seriously believe it is a pattern that can be tackled even by adventurous beginners – provided they are patient enough for the seaming.
The main reason why the pattern has 16 pages has to do with the fact that there are tutorials for all seaming techniques included. As always, I tried to keep the important instructions to a select few pages for those who prefer to print out the pattern.
Again, there are two places where you can buy this pattern:
It took me almost half a year to develop the pattern and many, many different samples. You can, of course, rely on the fact that the pattern was tech-edited and test-knitted and will offer a fun challenge for all those knitters who want to venture into creating realistic toys for family and friends.
Anyway, comment below if you have any questions regarding this whale pattern
This whale has more realistic details than ANY I have seen in knit or crochet. Even a blowhole!!!! I wanted to comment that the pattern is quite impressive with all the pictures, instructions and tips to make this perfectly. I am gonna use this pattern to finally force myself to do brioche, after years of putting it off due to irrational fear. Wow! This exceeds my expectations by far! Fantastisch!!
I bought this pattern on a whim, because I have gotten so much value from your tutorials and wanted to share my support in some small way which I can afford. I don’t know if I will be able to actually knit it. I have experience crocheting some smaller softies but never tried knitting one! This is such a unique pattern and I hope it does well so you can make Humpie some friends to swim with!
Well, a beginner at my knitting meet-up actually knitted it. So it’s actually somewhat accessible even to adventerous beginner!
Hi,
I am coming towards the end of the brioche pattern,after row 209 and the final decrease, but the underside has already passed into the fluke on the top. Is the underside supposed to be longer than the top side or is it my fault, my brioche stitch is a lot looser than my normal knitting. Can I try to fix it skipping the final rows (209-239) and moving onto the fluke?
Yes. it’s suppossed to be longer and that’s quite normal (i mean depending on your tension). the difference is supposed to create a bigger belly after seaming.
Hello from Italy! I am a very experienced knitter but the stacked increases (sInc10 LINE 87) have nearly broken me. The biggest problem I’m having is the splittiness of the yarn and I’m just not sure I want to continue trying to force something that doesn’t want to happen. Is it possible to do something else that would look effective but would be less stressful for myself and the yarn. Or, can I just omit the stacked increases here and accept that I’ve failed?
Well, here’s the thing. If you skip the blow holes (that’s the first set of stacked increases/decreases) that’s prooobably not going to be a big deal. Towards the end of the top part, you are knitting a second set of stacked increases/decreases and those will form the dorsal fin. While you could skip that as well, I feel this is a vital part of a humpback whale.
If there was something else where you could achieve the same results, I definitely would have done that. Potentially, you could knit a seperate dorsal fin and sew it to the main body later on. At the end of the day, just knit two little triangles, join them with mattress stitch and attach it. will not be as seamless and a bit fiddly but maybe that works better.
HOwever, if your yarn is super splitty, I would definitely knit a little swatch and see how well seaming works. That would actually be my biggest worry here.
Thanks so much for your quick reply. I am feeling a bit foolish but after I wrote my question/comment I tried again and realised that I was reading it all wrong. I needed to increase 10 stitches NOT do 10 stacked increases which would result in 20 new stitches. Must be age. Twenty stitches in that little space of splitty yarn was never going to happen! Anyway, I’m back on track and about to start the belly. Thanks again for your help!!!