Saturday jellyfish

Jellyfish croceted from newspaper plastic bags, by Barnowl

Pelagia plastica

In the meantime, I’ll post a photo of a jellyfish I crocheted from plastic yarn recently (I’ve felt that I have the brains of a jellyfish when I get home from work lately). It is loosely modeled on Pelagia spp. jellyfish, and I created the yarn from newspaper wrappers that friends at work saved for me. I used the hyperbolic crochet technique for the tentacles, and a simple cap pattern for the bell. All parts were crocheted using a size L hook.

In case you were wondering what to do to keep those plastic bags your newspaper comes in from ending up as junk/food that will kill a turtle in the Gulf of Mexico, I offer this jellyfish, from Guadelupe Storm-Petrel. (I think this may be a Texas blogger.)

This entry was posted on April 19, 2008 at 11:14 am and is filed under Art, Biology, Environmental protection, Science, Texas. Tagged: , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to “Saturday jellyfish”

  1. HannahJ Says:
    April 19, 2008 at 12:37 pm

    http://therenaissancebiologist.blogspot.com/2008/04/guns-and-stingers-and-needles-oh-my.html

    Thanks!

  2. naomidagenbloom Says:
    April 19, 2008 at 3:49 pm

    so this is “freeform crochet,” i.e., no pattern, simply whatever struck you? very good–and the artful picture too.

    at the risk of telling you about something you already know here’s an australian fiber artist http://www.hellejorgensen.typepad.com/. check out her “garbage vortex.”

    knit/crochet are wonderful ways to link to other natural things. once did 150 red wiggler worm interpretations to get people interested in kitchen composting. on to knit condom amulets now…always a cause.

    thanks, naomi

  3. barn owl Says:
    April 19, 2008 at 4:30 pm

    Hey, thanks for linking my blogpost, and yes, I am a Texas blogger. :-)

    The jellyfish was very easy to crochet-I’m trying to put together a pattern for it, and for a marine polychaete that I sent off to Kevin, of the Deep Sea News blog. They were both fairly freeform, seat-of-the-pants crochet projects, though. Helle Jorgensen’s blog, linked in the comment above, has excellent instructions for making “yarn” from plastic bags-she has quite a few amazing sea creatures that she’s crocheted, many of which are on display in NYC at the moment.

    I started out making tote bags from the plastic yarn, and then decided to make a few less practical items, to display in my lab. Several people at work bring me plastic bags for my projects, since I don’t subscribe to the local paper, and I use tote bags for grocery shopping. If you decide to try the plastic yarn technique, I recommend using plastic or aluminum crochet hooks, since the printing on some plastic bags can stain wooden hooks.

  4. Matt Says:
    April 19, 2008 at 4:38 pm

    You could add some ping pong balls to the top and call it the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

  5. Vera Bradley Handbags Says:
    May 11, 2008 at 5:35 am

    Vera Bradley Handbags…

    I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you….

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