Sperm Whale

You might have been expecting another bee post and I am almost done with the last bee item but the legs are small and tight to make so I'm splitting making them between other projects with larger hooks and yarn.

I also borrowed 75 Seashells, Fish, Coral and Colorful Marine Life to Knit and Crochet and wanted to try out the patterns before seeing if I could find a second hand copy of this out of print book. I'm always doubtful about buying combined knit/crochet books. I am not a knitter and when I find these books I always seem to want the knitted projects and am not really engaged by the crocheted projects. In this case there were actually crochet patterns that weren't in my other ocean/sea themed books that made hunting down this book in the second hand market worth my time.

For those of you looking for ocean/sea themed patterns I can only speak to the crochet directions. There are no hook or yarn size suggestions given. The challenge this presents is knowing how big/small the item will be as the picture for the sperm whale was misleading. I had thought the whale would be larger based on the picture and went with a smaller hook size. It became apparant as I started on the head that even with the standard hook size for this yarn that this would be a smaller ami. I quickly switched to a g hook and this was the final result.

While the directions didn't suggest doing so I was able to crochet and create the flipper and tails directly on to the ami as I went only sewing the ends in as I finished them. Since I don't love sewing the pieces together this was a plus for me.

I've been pleased with the range of characters I've been able to create so far and I do have more patterns to work from so I think this could be a fun and yes even educational set for this summer birthday box.