Seahorse

I wanted a seahorse to send along with Eric Carle's Mister Seahorse for July's birthday box. I chose the pattern from How to Crochet Animals: Ocean and I found the pattern to be easy to make. I used worsted yarn and a D hook. I'm thinking about making a second one with sport yarn and a c hook to fit with the size of the rest of the ocean animals.

Swordfish

While I've added a number of ocean creatures that are common to ocean sets I've also tried to find some uncommon ones to include as well. The swordfish comes from Bathtime Buddies which I've used to make some of the other creatures for this project.

I found a ball of blue I wanted to use up and realized later this was Red Heart Sport yarn and thankfully I had another skein as I didn't have quite enough to finish the project with the original ball. I've been working on keeping these creatures smaller so I used a D hook for this ami.

The pattern gives you options for using terry towel material or felt for certain animals in the set. I'd never used terry so I wanted to try it. For the rest of the animals in this set that require cloth, I'm going to use felt. While I liked the textured look it creates, I didn't like the way the terry sheds.

I have some other creatures I need to finish in order to match up with the books I've included in this birthday box so you can expect to see those soon along with more doll clothes as I continue to prepare for the Christmas donation.

Dolphin

I'm continuing to trade off working on my summer birthday projects and my doll donation items. I've got two playset items that are larger I'm working on and then the creatures and other items to use with the playsets to make for the birthday box. I'm working on a variety of different sized doll clothes for the Christmas donation.

The Little Chubby Dolphin pattern is a free pattern you can find here. I've been mixing and matching patterns from different books and pattern sites as I go. I finally got around to purchasing Bathtime Buddies as a Ravelry PDF download even though my library loan has not expired. There are cloth patterns for the tummies of some of the animals to add and instead of photocopying them to use to cut out the pieces (which I'd have had to do even if I'd owned the print book) I can print the patterns as I need them, cut and reprint again if I remake the animals and lose the precut patterns.

I did make some changes to the dolphin. As I've mentioned in previous posts I'm trying to keep the animals small so they will store well and fit the playsets. With that in mind I went from the suggested f hook to a D hook. I did make a white stomach rather than the multi-color tummy for the dolphin, but I wasn't thrilled with the look so I left it off. If I made another one I might try using a lighter weight yarn for the stomach as it just seems too bulky with 2 layers of worsted weight yarn.

I have 75 Seashells, Fish, Coral and Colorful Marine Life to Knit and Crochet on reserve at the library to pick up this weekend to see if there are any additional ideas to add to my ocean playset. I've not looked at this book before but I'm not a huge fan of the combined knit and crochet books as I don't knit. It always seems like the projects I most want to do are the knit ones. I've tried knitting and the best I can do are dishcloths. Crocheting is my fiber talent. That being said it is free to preview from the library so it is worth seeing if there are any fun things to add to the mix.

I found dishcloth material this weekend to use with the patterns in Bathtime buddies so I'm looking forward to experimenting with using cloth and yarn together. I've used felt as an add on but never to cover a hole in a crocheted piece before. It will be an interesting project. If it doesn't work I will have to crochet the holes closed or patch with a crochet patch.

Stingray

The Stingray was the first creature I made from Bathtime Buddies and I'm already trying to decide which ocean creature I'll be attacking next. I'm hoping to get the most out of my library loan before I need to get a PDF copy of the book from Ravelry here.

I used worsted weight acrylic yarn and a D hook to complete the Stingray.

I finished another portion of the island ocean bag and ordered some paracord to try to close the bag. I've never used paracord as a bag closure so we will see how it all works out.

Jilly Jellyfish

My Ocean themed summer birthday project continues with another pattern from Hooked on Amigurumi Jilly Jellyfish. My one disappointment with this pattern was unlike the last two sea creatures I've made from the book I did actually have to sew on the tentacles for the jellyfish. It wasn't hard but I've come to enjoy the way the designer incorporates crocheting all the pieces on to the items to avoid the need to sew.

My goal with these projects is to keep the amis small so they will fit into the ocean playset I'm crocheting to go with this birthday set. You can find that free pattern here. I used a D hook with a lighter worsted weight yarn to make this jellyfish. I added more tentacles than the pattern called for but I liked the look as I was working on the project.

I'm eying a project from Bathtime Buddies which I've got on loan from the library for my next ocean creature. I'm planning on picking up the e-book from Ravelry when my loan expires so I can dowload and print the patterns as I go along. I looked into buying a second hand copy of the book as the print copies are currently out of print but the prices are quite overpriced and unreasonable. So, the best option is the e-pattern option. If interested you can find the ebook on Ravelry here. If you crochet from a Kindle book Amazon does offer a cheaper option as a kindle book Bathtime Buddies. I like a printed copy I can make notes on as I work and I don't tend to like to work from a screen.