Crocheting Fins

From the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. This is a salmon, but it's relevant to our sculpin exploits because I know not all of you will know the difference between a dorsal and a pelvic fin.

Hello, sailors!

I did indeed make it to the local crochet meeting, and finished about a prototype and a half for my sculpin project. Prototype one wasn't good enough because its mouth turned out to be a little bit on the absurd side of large. Prototype two, of course, is not finished, but so far has turned out quite a bit better, so I'm happy. The crochet meeting, by the way, was excellent, and I had a great deal of fun being in the same room as another two dozen people who share my interest.

Today we're going to talk less about crochet, though, and more about fish. One of the main problems I had when thinking out how I wanted to create my sculpin was how the fins would be constructed.

Real fish fins are bony structures extending from the body, covered with a layer of skin. In some fish, such as sharks, the fins are covered in such a way that the internal structure is obscured. However, in the case of most fish, and especially cottids like tidepool sculpins (our subject of choice today), the internal structure of the fins is really evident. Here's a picture of a mosshead sculpin (Clinocottus globiceps) that really exemplifies how fan-like cottid fins are.

So the question is, how to recreate this in crochet? Crochet is a lot of things, but decidedly not membranous like fins. I considered simply a lot of chains connected at the top by single crochet or slip stitches, but the fin would lack structure in that case.

Sometimes in design we have to sacrifice reality and accuracy for an imperfect reflection. Rows of double crochet with chain spaces was my solution. The example pictured here is a pectoral fin (see diagram at top of post).

 I began with ch8, sk 2 ch, 6dc in remaining ch. It looks pretty solid right now, but at the very base of a fin the rays are close together, so it can be allowed to slide. (By the way, if you prefer to sew on limbs with a long tail, make the initial tail long and the finishing tail shorter, since we are starting from the base.)

 Row two is *dc, ch 1* x5, 1dc. The chain spaces flare the fin out and also start to put more space between the double crochets, which are acting as our rays.

Row three, which is where I finished off for a pectoral fin, is *dc, ch2* x5, 1dc. This mimics the shape of a fin pretty well, I feel, and is sturdy enough that it will hold the shape while still giving the impression of those delicate rays.

Of course, if you wanted to do something complicated (but scientifically accurate!) then thread crochet and an accurate ray count would yield a really nice fin. The tidepool sculpin has approximately 14 fin rays on the pectorals; starting with a ch16 and 14dc, and then increasing the number of chains in each succeeding row would yield you a very delicate but very accurate fin. I have no green thread and no desire to spend the next twenty years of my life thread-crocheting a sculpin, but it's a thought.

Until next time, sailors, when I will hopefully be able to show you the difference between my two prototypes and run down some of the design compromises I made in the translation between real life and crochet.

Rethinking Crochet Purpose

It's been a while, sailors, and it seems I have abandoned my fledgling blog before it really spread its wings. I've been thinking a lot lately, because I'll be going off to college in just a bit over a year, and once that's happened, I sort of wonder if I'll have money for yarn anymore.

Then I start to get a sick feeling in my stomach, because to be able to crochet at all is a privilege that too many people are unable to even contemplate. In the wake of discussions about yarn bombing and how undeniably oblivious the people who do it are, I've been feeling disconnected from my art. Gentrification is something I hate; by crocheting, am I becoming like or even just unconsciously affiliating myself with the gentrified hipster crowd? I want my crochet to have meaning to somebody, not just something that's "worth more" than store-bought socks and sweaters because they're handmade.

So I've done some thinking, and I think I've figured out why I want to crochet and run this blog. I want to be able to use my art as a form of scientific education; biology is something that I am wholeheartedly in love with, and by creating and thinking and learning about animals through the medium of crochet, I teach myself and anyone who comes by to look here. It's certainly not world-changing, and I still like to crochet socks, but it's something.

On that note, I'm going to talk about some upcoming projects that I hope to be writing about. This is one of my favorite creatures ever, Oligocottus maculosus--the tidepool sculpin. They're very beautiful fish, delicate and well-camouflaged. Also, they perpetually look like they hate the world, which is very charming considering how tiny this particular sculpin species is. Some of them can get a meter or so in length (Scorpaenichthys marmoratus, the cabezon, comes to mind).

A lil guy I found chilling under some seaweed. Note the saddle markings and lace-like fins.

So, here's a quick sketch I put together about how I might construct a huggable one. This one is probably going to resemble a Red Irish Lord (Hemilepidotus hemilepidotus) more than a tidepool sculpin due to its size. That's fine with me, because Irish Lords are also incredibly beautiful. They're covered everywhere with chromatophores, the things that allow cuttlefish and octopus to change colors. The Irish lords can't match the octopus for creative camouflaging, but it is unique in that it has chromatophores not only on the surface of its skin, but in its eyes. It's nothing if not thorough in its hiding mechanisms.

Man, look at those scribbles.

Some of the things I make sure to do in my crochet is add extra lines--the vertical lines on the body indicate which direction I want to crochet him in (lips to tail), and the spiral in the mouth indicates how I want to construct the throat piece that will make sure you can't jam a fist down his face. I make notes about what kind of stitches I want to use and some special details I want to pay attention to--in this case, cute chubby bellies. Sculpins are hardly plate-thin vertical tropical fish; many people compare them to frogs, and they should have some bulk to them.

Next Wednesday I'm going to try to make it to a local crochet meeting and get started on the prototype. See you next time, sailors.