Sunday, March 12, 2017

under the sea



I needed a break from white and snowflakes and tatted some sea creatures.

The gold fish is based on Ninetta (Antonina Caruso)'s adorable Kissing Minnows edging - pattern is here. I really like how the eye is made - a Josephine knot above the fish's head which is then twisted around the core while you make the next stitch so that it lies inside the fish.  Very clever.

The purple fish are based on Phyllis Schmidt's "Fish - Paperclip" pattern, which makes a cute quick paperclip bookmark.  I skipped the bead eye, removed the paperclip, and added some fins on the bottom.  I can't find her blog, but google was able to find the pattern here.  
[Side rant: The writeup for this pattern was distributed as a PDF and did not list the source location. Please, authors, please always include your site inside your PDF patterns!  Not having that information makes it very hard to find your site again and for people to link back to you to give you credit later!]

Then I made up a couple seahorses and a starfish to go with.  My first try on the seahorse did not go well - turns out I didn't actually know how the distinctive parts of a seahorse, the curly tail and pointy nose and funny fin on the back, went together exactly.  I looked up some photos online and the second and third ones look much more recognizable, though I think there's still room for improvement for a perfect little seahorse.

8 comments:

  1. Sweet. How are you going to use your underwater scene?

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    1. Not sure, I was just having fun. They'll most likely end up glued to a card.

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  2. Your little seahorse is adorable! Are you going to write it up for us?

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    1. I probably should - someone else might enjoy them. Let me see if I can make it easier first; I just made a continuous chain and joined back to the core thread, which is not something most people like to do.

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  3. These are all cute !
    Here is Phyllis' blog : http://phyls-handwork.blogspot.in/2017/02/fish-paperclip.html

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