Orca

The July birthday box started the journey to its new home last Friday. The Orca was the last ami to make it into the box.

The Orca pattern comes from Bathtime Buddies. I used Schachenmayr Catania sport cotton with a C hook to make this a smaller ami. I chose felt for the accents.

This was a fun project and I kept finding more projects I'd like to make at some point. However, it was time to mail this project off and get started with my fall birthday box and Halloween.

I know many of you are thinking but we just finished July 4th. I'm not looking to rush celebrating Halloween but I have 2 boxes to finish before October as well finishing off the doll donations by end of November. These are summer projects to be enjoyed in the fall and winter months. That doesn't even include the Thanksgiving box and the Christmas boxes. You can expect to see some fall decorations creeping into the blog in the not to distant future.

Narwhal

One of my goals when working on this ocean/sea themed project was to add some characters that aren't always found in traditional ocean/sea sets. The Narwhal was a good fit for that goal. I even included I'm a Narwhal to provide a little more age appropriate info about the Narwhal.

There are so many more patterns I'd love to add to this set but my time is winding down. I have one more ami to finish and then I have to wrap, pack and put the birthday box in the mail in order for the box to arrive on time.

The Narwhal pattern comes from Bathtime Buddies and I chose to make it in Schachenmayr Catania sport cotton with a C hook. I also chose to use felt instead of terry for the white features. This was a much better choice than what I did with the swordfish.

Hermit Crab

I love to combine children's books and toys in gift packages. Sometimes I look for books that fit the theme and other times I look for patterns to fit books that I want to gift.

In this case when I thought about doing an ocean/sea themed package I thought of both Eric Carle's House for Hermit Crab and Bill Peet's Kermit the Hermit.

One of my disapointments recently with Eric Carle's books is that book sites are only selling altered versions of his original picture books. The hardcover versions and picture books are not the tradtional children's book formats many fondly remember of Eric Carle's books. Most of the paper versions have been converted to "leveled" readers. While many publishers have added board book offerings the current hardcover offerings are not what you expect when you buy a hardcover book.

I've been searching through homeschool sites and other book sites for new copies of the traditional sized picture books and I am pleased to say the Hermit Crab will be heading out with traditional sized copies of both Eric Carle and Bill Peet's books.

If you are interested in the traditional picture book sized copies of Eric Carle's books I suggest you check the book measurements. While one expects a smaller version of the book when ordering a board book, I know I have certain expectations when I order a hardcover picture book that used to be a full sized book.

Some of the newer hard cover publications of Carle's books are closer in size to a Beatrix Potter book than a traditional hardcover picture book. If you want the larger sized books try homeschool sites and other book sellers. Some still have the regular picture book sized books in stock.

The pattern for the Hermit Crab comes from How to Crochet Animals: Ocean.

I didn't have the appropriate sport cotton colors and the lighter acrylic I had didn't hold the shape. Thus I went with wosted acrylic yarn and a D hook to have some control over the size of the crab. I used beads for the eyes that I'd recently purchased for Barbie clothes.

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.

Sea Turtle

This is another pattern from the Ocean Tower play set you can purchase here. She includes more sea creatures in the pattern but this is the last one I'll be making as there are other patterns I want to make for this bithday box and the deadline is creeping closer.

This is a quick turtle pattern and the directions are clear and easy to follow. I've been making my creatures smaller to save space, so this was made with a D hook and worsted weight yarn. I also chose to use safety eyes instead of sewing eyes on the turtle.

Octopus

The Octopus is one of the sea creatures included in the Ocean Tower pattern I wrote about previously. You can purchase the pattern here.

I've been trying to keep the animals small so while I did use worsted weight yarn but I went down to a D hook. I also used saftey eyes rather than the eye pattern suggested. I experimented with the eyes, but I couldn't get them to look like the pattern so I moved on to safety eyes.

This is a really quick ami to make and he's a great additoin to any sea/ocean set. I was looking at the one from Bathtime Buddies but after thinking about it I decided he's a bit intimidating for the age group I am making the set for and opted for the friendlier octopus from this set. Nothing says the more detailed, realistic one can't be added at a later date.

Ocean Play Tower

I mentioned in my previous post that I wanted to finish up the Ocean Play Tower so it would be ready for the July birthday box. I'd been working on the pattern, you can purchase here, for some time and the main structure was finished at the beginning of May. I had stalled when doing the finish work. When I realized it was Memorial Day weekend and June was around the corner I decided it was time to finish off the tower. What additional animals I add will be a matter of what I get done before the mailing deadline.

Along with adding another play set to the birthday box it also added the feel of a coral reef to the project.

The instructions for creating the towere were excellent. The tower came together well and the part that took me the longest were the outside decorations which I added before putting the towers together. The directions for these are also clear just time consuming. I chose to use smaller fibers rather than split fibers as suggested for some of the projects. My fish are larger than prescribed because I failed to change fiber and hook size.

Diver

This was actually the pattern that made me want to buy Bathtime Buddies when it first came out. This guy just stood out and made me laugh. I knew some day I was going to have to make him. When I thought about putting together this ocean set I realized he was going to have to be a part of it and thus the hunt began for the book I had lost.

The diver is made with Schachenmayr Catania sport cotton yarn and a D hook.

I added the eyes to the face plate before joining to the head as I wanted to use saftey eyes. This was something I learned after making the first head, which required me to make a second one. I make note of it should I decide to return to this project again. The hands are flat I made mine round.