A few weeks ago, I made myself a little goldfish to put in a plastic fish bowl for my grandson. My boyfriend said he wanted one for his desk, but I decided he needed a shark instead. I worked up this quick little shark for him, and in honor of Shark Week, I wanted to share it.

This is a quick and easy pattern, but I love his toothy grin.

Abbreviations:

ch: chain

sc: single crochet

sl st: slip stitch

inc: increase (2 single crochets in one loop)

dec: decrease (pull yarn through loop, pull yarn through second loop, yarn over and pull through all loops)

Materials needed (with affiliate links):

4.25 MM (G) crochet hook

Caron Simply Soft yarn in Grey Heather

15mm safety eyes

White and black embroidery thread

Yarn needle

Poly-fil

Body:

ch 3. Sl st to first ch to create circle. (Instead, you can perform the “magic circle” if you’d like.)

Row 1: ch 1, 10 sc inside of circle. Sl st to first sc, ch 1, turn.

Row 2: Inc, 1 sc , repeat around. Sl st to first sc, ch 1, turn.

Row 3: Inc, 2 sc, repeat around. Sl st to first sc, ch 1, turn.

Row 4: Inc, 3 sc, repeat around. Sl st to first sc, ch 1, turn.

Row 5: Inc, 4 sc, repeat around. Sl st to first sc, ch 1, turn.

Rows 6-11: Sc around. Sl st to first sc, ch 1, turn.

Attach eyes between rows 4 and 5. Sew on eyebrows and teeth. Begin stuffing with poly-fil. Stop periodically to stuff as you go.

Row 12: Dec, 4 sc, repeat around. Sl st to first sc, ch 1, turn.

Rows 13-15: Sc around. Sl st to first sc, ch 1, turn.

Row 16: Dec, 3 sc, repeat around. Sl st to first sc, ch 1, turn.

Rows 17-18: Sc around. Sl st to first sc, ch 1, turn.

Row 19: Dec, 2 sc, repeat around. Sl st to first sc, ch 1, turn.

Row 20: Sc around. Sl st to first sc, ch 1, turn.

Finish stuffing.

Row 21: Dec, 1 sc, repeat around. Sl st to first sc, ch 1, turn.

Row 22: Dec around. Sl st to first sc, tie off.

Side Fins (make 2):

ch 3. Sl st to first ch to create circle. (Instead, you can perform the “magic circle” if you’d like.)

Row 1: ch 1, 4 sc inside of circle. Sl st to first sc, ch 1, turn.

Row 2: Sc around. Sl st to first sc, ch 1, turn.

Row 3:  Inc in each sc around. Sl st to first sc, ch 1, turn.

Row 4: Sc around. Sl st to first sc, ch 1, turn.

Row 5: Sc around. Sl st to first sc, tie off.

Flatten, do not stuff, and sew evenly onto sides of shark.

Top Fin:

ch 3. Sl st to first ch to create circle. (Instead, you can perform the “magic circle” if you’d like.)

Row 1: ch 1, 4 sc inside of circle. Sl st to first sc, ch 1, turn.

Row 2: Sc around. Sl st to first sc, ch 1, turn.

Row 3:  Inc in each sc around. Sl st to first sc, ch 1, turn.

Row 4: Sc around. Sl st to first sc, ch 1, turn.

Row 5: Inc, 1 sc, repeat around. Sl st to first sc, tie off.

Flatten, do not stuff, and sew onto top of shark.

And there’s your little, mini shark. Be sure to check out these other shark patterns from these wonderful crocheters.

Crochet Amigurami Shark by 1 Dog Woof

I love this cute, round shark. It reminds me of the narwhal I made last year. I’ll have to work on getting  my narwhal pattern posted, but in the meantime, I think he could use a shark friend.

Shark Time Pouch on Moogly

This is such a cute idea, but I think when I make it, I’ll use it to store all of my crochet hooks.

Shark Snuggle Sack by the Crochet Crowd

There are many patterns for things like this on the internet, but I love the Crochet Crowd because they also include video tutorials for right-handed AND left-handed crocheters.

Crochet Shark Hat by Repeat Crafter Me

For the longest time, hats were the main things that I made. I’ve been making a lot of other things lately, but in the fall I’ll go back to making hats. This one is at the top of my list. I absolutely love it!

Crochet Gummy Shark Scarf by Twinkie Chan

My daughter used to love eating gummy sharks. I think she would flip for a gummy shark scarf. Twinkie Chan has some of the best patterns. Although this one is a paid pattern, it’s totally worth it.

Crochet Shark Slippers by Stacie L. Ratcliff

This is another paid pattern, but how could you resist these adorable shark slippers? The pattern comes in infant, women’s and men’s sizes. I might need to make some for my grandson, and some for my son.

Seen any other great shark patterns? Go find me on Facebook and share them with me.

My 1-year-old grandson is obsessed with ducks. He’s also recently started loving fish. I decided to design him a pillow and blanket set with ducks and fish. Here’s the graph that I worked up for this project:

It took me awhile to find the yarn that I wanted to use. I decided on Loops and Threads Snuggly Wuggly yarn in dark turquoise, silly sprite and yellow. I used Caron Simply Soft in black and white for the eyes, and I used Red Heart’s Anne Geddes Baby yarn in tangerine for the duck’s beak. I loved the color combinations. I used an H hook and worked each piece using my modified bobble stitch. This would also work great as a C2C blanket.

When I worked up the graph, I thought I would look for more of a green color for the background, but this dark turquoise was just too gorgeous to pass up. I used my alphabet graph to do his name at the top.

I sewed each piece together using a simple single crochet. When I pieced it all together, I didn’t have the graph open in front of me, so you’ll notice that the ducks and fish are swapped. It didn’t really matter to much to me, though, as long as they were facing each other and each fish and duck were diagonal from the other one.

Once the blanket was sewn together, I did a simple single crochet edging, then did some scallops in yellow.

Next came the pillows. I was originally going to just do one pillow with a fish on one side and a duck on the other, but then I remembered that I had this round pillow I bought awhile ago and hadn’t used yet. So I turned it into a fish.

I didn’t write down a pattern for this fish pillow, but if you want to make a great fish pillow with lots of fun textures, go check out this fish pillow pattern by Accessorize This.

For the duck pillow, I added a few more rows all the way around to make it fit. I was going to do a duck on each side, but I really wanted it to have a front and a back. And I am still in love with this color combination on the back of the pillow.

My Moonpie loves the whole set. I kept showing him the blanket as I was working on it, and he would put the pieces on his head, or lay his head down on it and snuggle it. I wanted to get a good picture of him with the set, but they were doing some construction on the house next door so he was a bit distracted.

I hope this graph comes in handy for all of those duck or fish lovers out there. I would absolutely love to see how this looks as a C2C blanket, or how it looks with other colors or just ducks or fish, so if you use this graph, go post a photo to my Facebook page and show me how it turned out.

Last month, I ordered some things from Stationary Geek, and I was very pleased when my package arrived. My favorite part of it is this Crochet Project Bible. It’s a perfect place to keep track of all of the different projects I’m working on. Inside of the book, it has a conversions cheat sheet that is very useful. The next 2 pages will help you figure out typical sizes for hats, scarves, blankets, and throws, and will also help you figure out the abbreviations on most patterns. There’s even space inside to write up notes or doodles that you don’t want to lose.

The rest of the book is filled with pages to keep track of up to 50 projects. I often start projects, then set them aside to work on something more pressing. When I go back, I sometimes forget exactly what yarn I was using, or what hook I started the project with. If you’re making something from a book or website, you can even write down where the pattern is so you can go back and find it later. While this is very useful for projects that you’ve set aside, it’s also useful if it’s a project that you might want to make again.

I love the graph because it allows me to draw up any graphgans I’m working on, but it could also be used like regular lined-paper to write out a pattern. I’ve already got a couple of projects written in my bible.

They also have a knitting bible you can purchase, or just a general craft project bible, which I may have to purchase in the future. Also, one of my favorite things on their site are these honest gift tags:

They have these for crocheters, knitters, a combination of the two, or for sewing projects. I love these tags so much, I almost don’t want to give them away. Want to order some of these products or check out what else they have? Go visit their website and be sure to add them on Facebook to keep track of any new products they come out with.

And don’t forget to follow me on Facebook as well!

All of my kids have an animal they collect. My oldest daughter collects elephants. She’s having a baby boy at the end of August, so she decided to collect giraffes for him, to go with her elephants. I found this cute giraffe made out of perler beads designed by Anja Takacs. She designs so many cute patterns that work well for graphgans, and this one was just too adorable to pass up. Check out her blog to see more of her lovely creations.

I had a hard time figuring out what type of yarn I wanted to use, but in the end I went with Caron Simply soft. It had the softness that I wanted, although it is a bit heavy for a bobble blanket. The colors I used were bone, sunshine, persimmon, chocolate, black and white. I haven’t tackled C2C blankets yet, but I think this would actually work much better as a C2C because it wouldn’t be quite as heavy. I used my modified bobble stitch to make this one, which just means I did 3 dcs instead of 4. The blanket is big enough for him to use it for a long time, and I love how it turned out.

I did a simple single crochet edging, then added some scallops to give it a fancier look.

I would absolutely love to see how this looks as a C2C blanket, so if you use this graph, or any of her other awesome graphs, go post a photo to my Facebook page and show me how it turned out.