Knitting Machine Mushroom Pattern

I have made a lot of pumpkins, and even some apples, for fall on my knitting machine, but this knitting machine mushroom pattern was a new one for me. I feel like mushrooms are kind of an unsung motif for the fall but they fit right in with changing leaves, witchy stuff and pumpkins. So let’s make a mushroom!

Materials

I used a very small amount of red and white worsted/medium/weight 4 yarn for my knitting machine mushroom. The stuffed mushroom weighs 16 grams so it was probably less than 25 yards total, and you’ll need more of the red than the white.

My red yarn is Bartlett Yarns 2 ply in Mountain Berry, while the white is Briggs & Little Heritage 2 ply in Washed White. While they’re lovely yarns (and Bartlett is a great American yarn company), they weren’t the best for knitting on the Sentro, so use what you have and see if it works for you.

You’ll also need a 22 pin Sentro or small Addi circular knitting machine, a small amount of stuffing, a pair of scissors and a yarn needle.

Size

The size of your knitting machine mushroom may vary depending on if you make the pieces bigger or smaller and how you stuff them.

Mine is almost 5 inches/12.7 cm tall, the cap is 3.5 inches/9 cm across and the fattest part of the stem is 5.75 inches/14.6 cm around.

Knitting the Mushroom Cap

This knitting machine mushroom pattern is fun because you get to knit a tube and a flat panel, so it’s a great project for learning how to knit a panel if you’ve never done that before.

The mushroom cap is a tube, however, and it’s worked the way you always work a tube. Cast on by working the yarn in front of the first peg, behind the second and so on around. Then crank 25 rounds.

Cut the yarn, leaving a long tail, thread it onto your yarn needle and crank one more round, picking up the stitches as you go and sliding them onto the yarn.

Pull tight to close up what will be the top of the mushroom.

Begin to pull on the yarn from the cast on edge (the bottom/inside of the mushroom cap) and stuff the cap to your liking. I just put a little bit to help it hold its shape, but you can make a big bulb if you like.

When it’s stuffed to your liking, pull the yarn at the bottom tight to close up the hole. I stitched through from bottom to top a few times to sort of flatten out the center a big, but this isn’t essential if you don’t want that look.

Knitting the Stem

The second part of the knitting machine mushroom pattern is, of course, the stem. As mentioned above this is worked in white as a flat panel. I used 12 stitches for mine. You can do more or fewer but the number you cast on determines the width of the panel, that is, how big around your stem is.

For a panel you cast on in the same way, but only over 12 stitches. To knit the first row, crank back over those stitches. The key thing with panels is to pay attention to your edge stitches and make sure you’re cranking far enough to complete the edge stitch but not so far that you’re adding a stitch.

Work the flat panel for 20 rows.

Cut yarn, leaving a long tail. Thread the yarn onto your yarn needle and crank one more row, picking up the stitches and putting them on the yarn as you go.

How to Assemble Your Knitting Machine Mushroom

Pull tight on the yarn to close up the end (this will be the bottom of the stem) and sew the side seam with mattress stitch.

Stuff the stem as you like. I tried to put more stuffing in the bottom to make the top of the stem wider than the top, but it didn’t make a huge difference.

Use the tail end from the cast on end to pull tight on those stitches, but don’t pull it all the way tight.

Use either white yarn end to sew this end of the stem to the bottom of the mushroom cap.

Hide remaining yarn ends in the stem and trim excess yarn.

If you like you can add stitching to the top (before you bury the ends) to make it look more like a Fly Agaric mushroom. Or you can add a face to the stem, or embellish in any way you like. There are lots of ways to make this knitting machine mushroom your own.