Julia, Julia, oceanchild, calls me | So I sing the song of love, Julia | Julia, seashell eyes, windy smile calls me | So I sing the song of love, Julia

~ “Julia” by Lennon/McCartney

February 9, 2021 With missy42’s Failed Hammerhead Shark a complete bust because a single missing but very important instruction meant I nearly ran out of the main colour before I was even half way through with it, I decided to go with one I was kind of leaning more towards anyway to make for an amigurumi swap I’m participating in with some friends. I managed to at get the white underside done earlier this evening so I at least have something to show for tonight’s work that isn’t going to end up getting frogged.

February 15, 2021 Of course, this pattern isn’t written perfectly, either.

• Round 21 of the head/body ends with 8 stitches while round 22 reads “R22 dec four times (2),” however, if you decrease from 8 stitches 4 times, that would leave you with 4 stitches in that round, not 2.
• I would have liked to have had a stitch count for each row of the belly stripe. And…
• While the pattern starts off “Yarns – main colour (A) I used Sky Blue Bernat Premium…” and does indeed instruct you to work the Head/Body “with A,” every single one of the fins begins “with G.” It was a little confusing because at first I thought maybe the pattern was referring to a different hook size, but I quickly realized the “G” stood for gray. The comments to the blog post found further down on the page confirmed this, but it would be much clearer if the designer didn’t change their terminology and yarn colour in the middle of the pattern.

And of course, all the different parts and seaming are fiddly and tedious and annoying, but that’s how I feel about amigurumis in general. Nevertheless, it’s coming along, I’m still much happier with the way this is coming out than my previously attempted hammerhead.

Despite my woes and complaints and frustrated mini tantrums from the other night, I ended up re-doing the belly section anyway because I felt my original one was too big. I don’t know if I was just working loosely that night (though I find that unlikely), if Lily’s 14 oz. Big Balls are just slightly heavier than their smaller skeins or the one I have is just older and therefor looser, but once I held the white belly stripe to the body, it just didn’t seem to sit right. The belly stripe is there because the belly is a different colour, not because that particular section of a shark’s belly sicks out more. I ended up re-working it using the smaller, US size F (3.75mm) hook and I think it works much better in the smaller size - it sits much more flush with the body.

I found placing the eyes after only 14 rounds a bit awkward. Because of the nature of crocheting in the round, it all gets a bit skew-y and without working the decreases for the tail section, it’s hard to tell where the eyes will land once everything’s been worked up and the body is filled out with stuffing. What I ended up doing was working the full body, stuffing as I went. When that was done, I temporarily pinned the belly down to where I wanted it to go and placed the eyes accordingly. Then, I ripped the body down to round 16, removed all the stuffing and placed the backing on the safety eyes to secure them. Re-stuffed and re-worked the remaining rounds of the body, stuffing the new bits as I went. It’s more time-consuming, but I’d be REALLY upset if I placed and secured the eyes early on only to find they end up landing next to the dorsal fin or something.

I’ve also decided to put off stitching on the gills because I want it to work in relation to where the belly stripe ends up going. It’s going to be a pain the butt because that kind of thing is always easier to do and secure before it’s stuffed but again, I didn’t want the gills to fall someplace weird after the belly stripe is placed.

All parts are completely worked up at this point, the Head/Body is stuffed, eyes placed and the dorsal fin sewn on. Now, I just need to seam on the belly stripe along with all these little bitty little fins before finishing by stitching on the gills. Why did I agree to do this swap again?

February 16, 2021 Seaming the belly on seemed to take FOREVER. It was either scrunching up too much one side, ended up landing too far to another side when I got towards the end, or I didn’t like the the spacing of the stitches. It took hours to get it to where I was satisfied with it.

The individual fins weren’t nearly as difficult to sew on, but there were SO many of them and they’re SO itty bitty that securing them all took another several hours.

I know I like to make my amis out of cotton, but the nature of the fiber and the smaller hook size I used made it a little hard to work into when I was stitching stuff onto the Head/Body, so I did have that kinda working against me, too. If I had used a softer yarn and larger hook, the finishing would have been less of a struggle.

I finally made the finishing touches (stitching on the gills) around sunup this morning. It still looks off-center to me especially if you look at it from the top or bottom, so I’m thinking of it as shark in motion and that’s why it’s not perfectly symmetrical. Otherwise I’ll drive myself nuts.

Overall, I like the way it came out: small but sturdy and still pretty cute. I got some photos and shipped it out this afternoon. It should be there by tomorrow and I hope it’s on schedule because we’re planning on doing our ami swap party tomorrow night.

Photos will be posted once my swap partner opens it.

P.S. I changed the name of the project from “Shark Amigurumi” to “Oceanchild” while listening to “Julia” by the Beatles. That works for a shark, right?

P.P.S. Almost forgot to mention that I did invisible decreases for this project.