Well, my first version of this went over so well that her sister now wants one, too! I hope that this one is as successful as the first. I printed out my notes from the first one, and they were actually quite helpful to work from. I pretty much did the exact same thing, except for I did one less stair-step on each side of the fin (I felt that it needed to be thicker in the middle), and there was one spot for the attaching of the fin where my notes fell short and I wasn’t sure what to do. I’m not as happy with what I ended up doing, but I’ve tried to elaborate a little more here, so at least I’ll know what not to do next time, as I’m pretty sure there’s going to be at another one of these in my future, for my 3rd granddaughter.

I started with Foundation dc rather than a chain, but once again, I needed 151 of them rather than 150 per the pattern. I don’t know why no one else has mentioned this. Maybe it’s just me, but it didn’t work out evenly for me with 150.

I worked the whole thing flat, carrying the colors up the side rather than cutting them, and seamed it up at the end with mattress stitch, leaving the top 30 rows open. Then I did one row of single crochet around the opening.

I did a total of 80 rows, including 12 rows of a gradual decrease, beginning on row 69, as follows (thanks to susansands excellent project notes for this):
Rows 1-3 (69-71): Replace shell with 2dc, ch, 2dc
Rows 4-6 (72-74): Replace shell with 3dc
Rows 7-9 (75-77): Replace shell with dc, ch, dc
Rows 10-12 (78-80): Replace shell with dc

Fin:
I followed an alternate fin pattern by Annoo, which begins at approximately minute 15 of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A33RmatUb6g. I began with 62 Fhdc, and worked each side down to 23 sts (instead of 20 as I’d done the first time), working back and forth in rows, doing hdc in the back loop only, chaining 1 to turn, and leaving 3 stitches unworked every other row. Per her instructions, I fastened off the first half, but did not fasten off the second, using the working yarn to seam the two halves together with sc, through both loops, leaving the last 3 stitches unworked.

Attaching the fin was rather a fudge job, and even more so the second time around! I matched up the center of the fin to the center of the front edge of the bottom of the body (I had seamed up the side of the body to close the circle, but hadn’t yet sewn the bottom closed), and then just kind of mattress stitched it, easing in the fin out to each edge. I had to use about 3 or 4 stitches of the fin to each stitch of the body, but I managed to get it all in. I used a long piece of yarn, pulled half-way through to begin in the center, so that I had a length to use from the center out for each side, thereby minimizing the number of ends, and also the wear & tear on the yarn.

This next part though, is where my notes fell short: I said that I then “sewed the back edge to the assembly, trying to sandwich the bumpiness of the fin to the inside”, but I didn’t say what kind of stitch I used for this. Did I mattress stitch this part too, or did I whipstitch it, or something else? I didn’t even have any pictures of this area. I don’t know what I did that first time, but it came out way better than this second time around. I used a whip stitch on the back side this time, and I don’t really like how it looks. The front doesn’t look as good either. It doesn’t have that nice curved edge of the first one, and it looks rather sloppy. Maybe that’s because of the way the stitches from the back catch the stitches on the front? Or maybe it’s because I didn’t keep a clean line with the mattress stitch? I’m not really sure why, but it’s going to have to do. It took a really long time to do, and would be exceedingly difficult to rip it out at this point.

So then at the end, I ran the yarn back through the whole fin attachment again, twice, trying to gather it a bit more. This actually helped the looks of it a bit. I’m still a little disappointed compared to the first one I did, but all in all it’s not bad. It’s only where the fin attaches to the body, and it’s probably just me who will notice it. In general, the whole thing came out pretty cute, just as much as the first time around. I’m hoping that Maisy will love it just as much. At least this one will be all hers (see her inspiration photo for the colors at left), and she won’t get in trouble for using it!