I used to think seahorses were mythical creatures like unicorns. They amaze me! They are so tiny and delicate looking. These seahorses are dancing a love-dance. Maybe the father will carry some babies soon (see, another reason they sound like mythical creatures!).
I often wished I could make my husband do the pregnant part of having our children. I love my babies but I hated pregnancy. I started feeling sick before I knew I was pregnant and it only ended when the baby came out.
My first baby come a month early. I couldn’t sleep one night and suddenly my water broke. It’s common in movies because it’s exciting and dramatic but in real life less than 10% of births begin with the Premature Rupture of Membranes (PROM). Preterm PROM (when your waters break before 37 weeks) is even rarer and most statistics say it occurs in 1-2% of births. I was definitely not ready for my baby at 36 weeks but that’s life.
I wrote a bit more about Alice in a post last year:
When I was nearing the end of my 2nd pregnancy I truly had no idea when I would go into labor since I had been so blindsided the first time. I was thankful when I made it past the mark of having an early baby and he came at exactly 39 weeks. Remington was a nice, healthy baby boy: 9 lbs, 3 oz / 4167.38 g.
My third child delayed her entrance. Eleven days after her due date I was induced with Melody. She was inside me for almost 6 weeks longer Alice had been and she had the weight to prove it! Alice was born 6 lbs 13 oz / 3090 g and Melody was 9 lbs 11 oz / 4394.18 g when she was born.
Here’s a way-too-personal photo of my giant pregnant self. I was ready, but Melody wasn’t born for another full month after this photo!
Anyway, back to the crochet…
I originally drew this pattern to be included in my eBook, “More in the Ocean” but when I was finished I realized I had started with the wrong chart size! All the patterns in that eBook have a chart size of 121 x 121 and this pattern is 161 x 161.
I still wanted six patterns in that eBook so I was forced to try again on the merman pattern. I had pretty much given up on getting him right and was going to put seahorses in the eBook instead. This mistake redeemed itself and now we have “Trident” in the eBook AND this larger baby blanket pattern with seahorses!
Some people have different ideas on what size a baby blanket is anyway. So they may be more pleased with this larger size. Other people are joining the squares together to create an adult-sized blanket and may find it difficult to add this pattern into the mix.
I can’t wait to see your beautiful creations with yarn. My tester, cyncitycrochets, used some pretty neat ombre yarn in this sample. White is used as the Main Color (you can tell because those outside border lines are white). The Wrong Side (WS) looks pretty awesome when you use the interlocking technique – if you use the overlay mosaic technique the WS will be striped.
Interlocking. Right Side, White as MC. 
Interlocking, Wrong Side
This pattern, like all of my patterns, comes complete with written instructions and a chart for two techniques: interlocking crochet and overlay mosaic crochet. Choose your favorite technique or challenge yourself and learn a new one! I have a few tutorials on YouTube: www.YouTube.com/c/AshleeBrotzellDesigns
The chart that comes with the mosaic method has X’s to show where the dropped double crochets go.
I hope you enjoyed my little stories and I hope you really love this new pattern! The links to Etsy and Ravelry are both here; if you don’t have a preference I think Ravelry is better (less fees for me, easier to update patterns when needed, nice library to keep things organized, photos of everyone’s projects) but I offer both platforms so you can make your own choice!
