What better time than January 1st to begin digging into the PNW Community Coral Reef Project! My goal for this year is to post weekly with pattern ideas for people interested in creating corals and creatures for the reef.
Today I thought I would talk about seaweed, Bladderwrack, Sea Moss, Channell Wrack…whatever you want to make. These “dangling bits” will be used in the reef to add punches of color and texture and will drape and dangle all around the installation. It’s a freeform sort of simple piece that you can do, even as a beginning crocheter or knitter. The drawing below provides a pretty good roadmap for what you will want to create.
Crocheters can choose their favorite color and simply make a single crochet chain for as long as you desire. Keep in mind that the wandering nature of this piece can make it deceptively time consuming. You can easily get a substantial piece of seaweed from a 12 inch chain.
Once you get to the end of your chain, turn and start coming back. Wherever you want a dangling element, simply single crochet a chain “off the beaten track”.
When you are crocheting your new chain to dangle down, you can split this chain into as many “side tracks” as you desire. Each branch can branch again and again. It can be a very meditative “mystery tour”.
The longer you make each dangling bit, the more branches you can create and the more impact your seaweed will have. Making this in sparkly novelty yarn can be very fun!
There are written patterns for knitting Bladderwrack and Channelled Wrack.
For the piece below, I simply knit a three stitch I-Cord out of novelty wool for several inches (12? Maybe more?). I then cast off and picked up three stitches along the I-cord and started making another I-cord to dangle down. I continued in this manner until I had branched out on each I-cord as many times as I desired. You can see how to knit an I-cord here. When I was done, I threw it in the washer and felted it.
Here are some photos of how I have incorporated seaweed into my smaller pieces.
What are some other patterns and ideas that you would like to see this year? Let me know in the comments!