crochet seashells

This summer a colleague and kindred-crochet friend of mine issued a summer challenge, a little summertime C-A-L if you will.  It involved crochet and seashells.

In the summer?! Of course I took her up on it! The patterns she found were designed by Susan Whitlock.

I got right to work because I know myself, and the procrastinator I can be.  Plus, we were headed to the beach and I really wanted to be able to take a photo with this caption:

I started with Medium Sea Shell #1, and let's just say it was...um...not very seashell-looking.

Seriously?!?  I ripped it out and started over.  This time it came out a bit better.  I got to learn the style in which Susan was writing her patterns.  I learned that the finishing stuffing and stitching makes a huge difference in how your shell turns out.  Stuff the top, but not too much (my orange one is over-stuffed) Make sure to really tuck that loose end into the shell to create the spiral that a shell has and keep the bottom tip open and flat (like the blue one).

And since I have this thing for rainbows, I searched for some other shells from Susan and found these cuties.  I hooked up the tiny seashell in purple to complete the rainbow.

I love my little crochet seashell collection!

And since we both completed the challenge with a good month of summer left, the overachiever in me issued us this challenge:

I mean, how cute is this!
You can find it in the February, 2014 issue of Inside Crochet

It was designed by the brilliant Emma Varnam.

But this one is not coming together as quickly as seashells.  It involves lots of slow-going single crochet, and lots of hand stitching (something I'm not a fan of).  Maybe it'll be done by next summer!

Happy crocheting!