not. happy. happy whale.

whale attempt #1.

while i wouldn't call it a horrible failure (the perfectionist in me would and has several times over the last few hours) i'm not thrilled with how my first whale turned out. normally i wouldn't share something that i wasn't 100% in love with but i thought someone somewhere out there might appreciate hearing the story of how this little guy evolved this week.

i originally had an idea for a whale rattle while i was coming up with project sketches for knit + crochet design week...

i wanted to come up with a larger version of this same rattle idea while i was waiting for my noise makers to come in so that i could roll on lots of the little guys once i had all the materials together. the perfect whale in my head has a big ball body and a fat short stubby tail.

as i began crocheting him up i started second guessing how my first idea would translate to something bigger and i wasn't sure how he would sit as a big sphere. oh, and i wanted his tail to connect lower not just stick out behind him like the fish.

so i started getting all crazy. i came up with this formula to leave a flat base and decrease the rest evenly to try to mimic the front increases, yeah that looked awful. upside, i was pretty impressed with my math skills in getting it all figured out.  

so i frogged back to my single rows and tried something new. i can't tell you how long it took me to get through those next five rows... do i elongate the body? decrease evenly into a ball and just see what happens? should i decrease and alternate with single rows? do i just go with it and scrap whatever preconceived notion i had of how this whale was going to look like?

yup.

so this is what we got...

he kind of looks like a torpedo. i ended up lengthening his body a few more rows, then alternating decrease rows with single crochet rows to lengthen even more. his tail attached all wonky and i think for a longer whale like this it probably should have been thicker there at the "neck" of the tail.

i could have frogged the whole thing, and i almost did many times. but i figured this was a learning experience and i was able to get a few ideas out of my system so i can start over fresh. besides...

little miss could barely let me get a few pictures taken of him this afternoon before grabbing him and swinging him around in circles giggling. she likes to squish him into her face too. he may end up being used as a club of sorts, but that's to be expected.  little miss is always perfectly happy to give any of my "less than perfect" friends a good home in her growing plush menagerie.

so that's my FO for the week. i'm getting over being bummed about this guy not translating into exactly what i wanted and am excited to start attempt #2. this is going to be a pretty crazy weekend so i'm not sure how much i'll be putting on my crafting plate. things are heating up for joey at work (notice i always call him joey when i don't get to see him a lot during the week? or when he has to work on the weekend?) and he has to go in on sunday. little miss + i decided kind of last minute to take a trip home to see grandma + grandpa (and all of our other loves too) for easter so tomorrow is my big day to pack while i have someone to chase after little miss. i'm hoping to be focused and get it all done early so i have the rest of the day to craft in peace... ha.

what are your crafty plans for the weekend? i hope to share some of the projects from around the web that have me inspired for easter! eek... i'm actually going to be planning some crafty projects for while we are at grandma's! so excited to get some time to craft with my mom ♥

love.