It's been three whole years since I shyly and reluctantly started a craft blog.  Oh, yes, it's true.  I was totally uncomfortable with the whole thing.

The free download for Week 2 of my 3-year blogaversary is Supercute Sea Creatures.  I love these little guys so much.  They are super-easy to make, which means that you can make tons of them to experiment with all sorts of color combinations.

Part of the reason I only posted once last week, in addition to our router dying, is that Andrew and I were working on a free downloads page!  Yay!

I made the Supercute Sea Creatures pattern available in November ... which isn't a very sea creature-y month.  Now that summer is in full swing, I thought I'd share you some of the awesome creations made using my pattern.

Here is a more evidence of my "little problem" in regard to ornaments.  When Crafty McGee posted that she had a couple left over ornaments to trade, I JUMPED on it.  Breathlessly.

For my part of the trade, I made her the tie-dyed jellyfish above.  I have a stash of tie-dyed felt that I finally cut into for this little guy.

The jellyfish seems to be the most popular of the Supercute Sea Creatures, which is a little bit of a surprise to me.  I would have thought it would be the octopus.

I also made her a purple fish with a sequin eye stripe.  I thought the silver sequins would look good paired with Christmas lights,  But now that I think about it, these little guys might be on her light-less tree ... in which case the sequins will bring a little bling to the mix. :)

I can't wait to get my little tree from Crafty McGee.  I think it's uber brilliant that she put the eyelet for hanging in the middle of the treetop star.

When I posted the Supercute Sea Creatures pattern, I gave the first five commenters a free copy.  Lucky for me, June, of Planet June was one of those people.

She made these adorable all-white sea creatures using my pattern.  Her post includes a details about how she sewed each creature and a close-up photo of each, so go read it. :)

For all you crochet lovers, June sells awesome amigurumi patterns for a staggering array of cute animals.  Definitely check them out.

When I made the jellyfish for the Supercute Sea Creatures, I used a single line of blanket stitch along the bottom edge.

My blanket stitch tutorial only showed how to do blanket stitch if you were going all the way around.  I added a little section to the tutorial that shows you how to start a blanket stitch if you don't intend on meeting back up with the first stitch so you can keep your first stitch vertical.

That tutorial page is WAY long.  It's such a monster.  I need to rethink that page and get it looking more usable.  Maybe I should split all the little bits up and put them on their own pages.  Hmmm.

I'm so excited about completing another pattern, which you can now get on the free downloads page. I designed the octopus in April, and he languished on my craft table since then.  Just last week, I decided to re-do my starfish pattern and add a jellyfish and fish to the group.

They are all easy-to-make and perfect for customizing.  There's lots of room for experimenting with color combinations and embellishments.  I think an all-white set would be really cool, too.  There are a couple extra photos in the Futuregirl Supercute Sea Creature Flickr group.

Each creature is between 3 and 4 inches tall and wide, which makes them the perfect size for ornaments, package tags, or clip-ons for backpacks.

** update: pattern on free downloads page **

I'm *this close* to finishing the pattern and instructions for the my seahorse stuffies.  I know I shouldn't say anything before it's ready, because I'm totally jinxing myself, but I'm sure it'll be up soon!

I'm including the pattern and instructions for both adult *and* baby seahorses.  The adult pattern looks just like Sasha and the baby pattern is what I used to make the two little cuties pictured here.

The only thing holding me back is that I just got my copy of Crochet Me in the mail and I'm fighting the urge to start swatching for the Icelandic Cowl.  I've decided that I'm going to use every bit of my will power and not open the book until I have the seahorses finished and posted.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to resist ...

Here's a little behind-the-scenes shot from today.  It's pretty ridiculous how much I love setting these things up. Oh, I just realized I need to add 'photoshop out the strings' on my list of things to do ... I better get to work! :)

** update: This pattern is now available as a free download! **

This is Octophrost, the ornament I made for my ornament swap. Every time I say "Octophrost" out loud, I giggle and Andrew looks amused.  Especially when I add, "Santa of the Sea." I find it so funny and ridiculous.

I've been dying to make felt stuffies for a while, so when the ornament swap came up, I looked my stack of not-used-yet Japanese craft books.  I was looking for something appropriate for an ornament ...  and then I saw Sigmund sitting on my desk.

I loved Sigmund perched in the fake seaweed and it clicked that an octopus would be super cute snuggled in the branches of a Christmas tree.  Since I designed the octopus pattern myself, my poor, neglected Japanese craft books are still staring at me from the shelf, accusingly.

As I was making them, Andrew kept asking me questions, like, "What do you mean, 'Santa of the Sea'?" and "You are going to make him ALL white?"  I realized I had a whole little story going in my head about how Octophrost is made of snow and ice, that instead of shooting out ink clouds to hide he shoots out a mini blizzard of snow, that he makes all the toys himself because he's got eight arms, and other stuff like that.  I do that a lot - I'll think about something a whole lot and then just share the last thought and get confused stares from everyone.  I thought it might be a good idea to let everyone in on the magic of Octophrost, so I drew a mini poster that illustrates what I have in my head.

I was going for "Victorian Circus Poster" with the postcard.  The postcard cracks me up almost as much as saying (and typing), "Santa of the Sea."

I made the Octophrosts with 4 different frosty eye colors: blue, pink, mint, and lavender.  Each postcard was color-penciled to match.  Since I had to make these in the most efficient manner possible, I learned a lot about mass hand-producing stuffies.  I'll share all those tips in a later post.

The other crafters in the ornament swap are amazing. I've been totally freaked about whether my ornaments will be even half as awesome as theirs ... but my insecurities have been totally overwhelmed by my excitement about getting their wonderful creations.  The other participants are:

Michelle from Green Kitchen (organizer extraordinaire)
Bethany from Bitter Betty
Stephanie from Ruby Crowned Kinglette
Tricia from Frizzelstixs
Meg from Pixiegenne
Cassi from Bella Dia
Kristin from Kleas

I can't wait to share all their goodies with you, too!



I've entered Octophrost in Whipup.net's current Whiplash in the decoration category.

Stellan the Starfish is the third original stuffie in my sea creatures series (Sigmund the Octopus is the first and Sasha the Seahorse is the second).

Stellan is made of light and dark orange felt, pearl beads, a flower sequin, and embroidered embellishment.

The tiny stitches on the bottom are in three different colors. There is an orange near the blue lines, then light yellow, and lastly white in the crook between the arms. The effect is much more subtle than I was going for. I should have used a set of more contrast-y colors.

The shape of Stellan is exactly how I envisioned it: the arms curl under slightly; the top is more three-dimensional than the bottom; and once he is stuffed, he has the right starfish shape.

If only starfish had eyes. I didn't realize how much I like putting eyes on stuffies until Stellan. More than anything else, eyes convey personality. This is true of stuffies, people, and, well, anything with eyes. Think about it: sharks and snakes have dead-evil eyes and pandas and puppies have heart-melting eyes. Poor starfish, they have no eyes at all.

** UPDATE:  Sasha the Seahorse Pattern & Instructions PDF is available on my free downloads page**

Sasha is made of Limbo Lime felt, plastic pearl beads, periwinkle floss embellishment, and eyes made from a white sequin and a cooper-colored bead.

I approached the design of Sasha the same as Sigmund. I did a Google search for seahorses and studied all the different seahorse features. I never realized how truly bizarre these creatures are. The more you look at seahorses, the weirder they look, just like a word sounds weird if you repeat it over and over. Seahorses are very very elaborate, so I had to really pare down the design to basic elements. I used the periwinkle stitching and the pearl beads to mimic their exoskeleton-looking bodies.

** update: This pattern is now available as a free download! **

This original stuffie is the culmination of 5 pattern pieces, 25 felt pieces, 50 beads, 52 sequins, and hours of sewing. Whew! I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I decided to design an octopus back in February. I was flying high on my easy success with the owls.   An octopus is a different story.

I have a yard of cream felt that I bought to do prototypes. There is a graveyard of weird cream arms and orbs in the lead-up to a fully recognizable octopus. The biggest challenge was the arms. I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted them to look like. The solution I came up with seems obvious now, but I didn't get it on my first try.

I also didn't work out what I was going to do for a face until I had the body and bespangled legs all sewn together. There were a couple of ways to go with the face. One is Japanese-cute wide-eyed and human-ish. I decided to go with inhuman, indifferent, google-eyed animal. Sigmund creeps me out. I imagine big sharp teeth hiding under all those legs. Why is he staring at me like that?!

I was so excited when I finished Sigmund. I wanted to honor him with a kick-ass photo shoot, so I bought that cool aquarium grass you see in the picture. I was hoping to find a cheesy treasure chest or goofy diver, too, but they only had realistic looking rocks and sea urchins and stuff. I was impressed. I almost bought one of those big undersea photos that you can tape on the back of your aquarium to use as a back-drop, but I thought that was going too far (... says the girl who just sewed a bazillion sequins on a small stuffed octopus ... ha!).

I am going to do a set of three original sea creatures. I like doing things in sets of three, like I did with the owls. I already have the next one's prototype done, and it's looking good. I going to keep it a secret for now, though. :)