30 Day Crochet: Day Twenty-Three

Good Afternoon!

I should have posted this earlier this morning, but I was distracted. Some major storms went through our state (and many others) last night. Suffice to say, I did not get sleep. That lead to me procrastinating today before hitting Google for something simple. The good news is, Giraffe joined in! :) We made turtle appliques:

These are what we ended up with. :) We were going to do a cute little number we found in google images, but the link lead to a site with spam alert with unsafe "FRAUD ALERT!!!" pop ups screaming at us. Uhm... no, thank you!

^^^^^Here is the picture we ended up just eyeballing.^^^^^ 

You can see those turtles are only SO cute! I know we already did turtles, but those were 3D. These are flat, and can be sewn onto clothing, a headband, purse, tote bag... etc. I do wish the link worked. You can see in our picture that my first attempt (the neon green with light tan head/legs) came out much too large. That is because I got carried away with the rounds! Ha!

Granny Hook (size H) was my hook of choice, of course. I worked the first (again, lime green) in a half circle, turning and chaining one as I went. If he were smaller, he may have turned out cuter, but I'm not sure. I started with four stitches, doubled to eight, and followed the usual pattern for the next few rows (2sc, 1sc for a row... 2sc, 1sc, 1sc for a row... 2sc, 1sc, 1sc, 1sc for a row) instead of going immediately to fasten off, I worked single crochet across the flat bottom of the shell to give myself something to work in for the feet. I did fasten off at the end of the row, leaving enough yarn to sew in.  

The head was a simple matter of chaining five, working a few hdc's into the second stitch from chain, sc in the last stitches, including one more on the shell, and following back around with sc's to enlarge the head. The feet are simply 1sc each in two stitches per foot. No biggy. :) 

He looked a little big to me, so I made the next (green and white with cream head/feet) guy smaller. This time I worked completely in the round, starting with four sc's in a magic circle. The only difference is that on round two and three I chained a few stitches to flatten out the bottom of the shell. I left extra yarn for sewing them snugly against the rest of the shell. His head was the same as the first turtle, but I left off the second round of sc's that would've enlarged the head. The feet were still 2 sc's, but I kept them in the same stitch this time instead of working in 2 separate stitches per foot. 

Giraffe made the purple turtle. She worked in the round for the body, used magic circle with dc's for the head, slip-stitched it to the body - working increases across the bottom of the shell to create the body. She turned at the end, slip-stitching in the next two stitches. For the feet, she chained two and worked 3 double crochet into the same stitch. She slip-stitched three more times and worked the second foot the same way, ending on two slip-stitches back up to the head before fastening off. 

Anyway, these are very rudimentary instructions. These turtles are easy and fun to do. As you can see, playing around with pattern ideas makes different shapes. Bring out your creative side and join us!

Crochet Along! :)

Continue to Day Twenty-Four