A beautiful lace seahorse

Posted by Rill in Seahorse Crafts | 0 comments I have to admit I had never even heard of "tatting" before I stumbled across this beautiful example from Angie in Michigan, the Desperate Tatter. According to Wikipedia, tatting was developed in the early 19th century and is described as "a particularly durable lace" that was was developed to imitate point lace. From what I've read on Angie's blog she uses a shuttle - other methods include using a crochet hook or needle. Like crochet, the patterns for tatting are either written as a kind of shorthand or else a visual pattern where the design is drawn schematically. I daren't read any more about it - it...

Personal ads for seahorses?

Posted by Rill in News | 0 comments A clever advertising campaign for the seahorse exhibition at Monterey Bay Aquarium highlights the extremely unusual breeding habits of seahorses. To promote The Secret Lives of Seahorses the aquarium has run a series of mock personal ads for each of the fish featured in the exhibition. Each fish's name plays on its scientific name and gives clues about the seahorse's life: Eartha Excises sums up her Political Views as "Men should not only be pregnant, but should clean my house". Ken Kuda lists his Interests as "Hanging around, eating brine shrimp, dancing." You can even become a Facebook friend of the...

Subscribe to updates by email!

Posted by Rill in News | 0 comments I have now added a Feedburner email subscription option to the website! What does this mean? You can now receive website updates via email. You no longer have to keep checking back to see if there's something new on the website - you'll be sent an email instead. Simply type your email address into the box on the right (underneath the heading "get seahorse email updates") and press the "Subscribe" button. A  pop-up window will open asking you to type in some text to make sure it's an actual human being subscribing to the updates and not a spamming exercise.  Type in the text and hit the "Complete...

Fantastic Seahorse Knitting Pattern!

Posted by Rill in Seahorse Crafts | 4 comments I found a fantastic vintage knitted seahorse toy pattern on eBay and wanted to share it with you. It's from a wonderful eBay seller called FanncyNancy (some of her other items are listed below). The pattern is a digitally cleaned up and restored reprint of a vintage original - the picture to the left is a knitted-up version of the pattern. I'm excited about making up the seahorse in lots of different yarns and sizes. The pattern calls for worsted wool and #4 double-pointed needles - this makes a seahorse toy around 7" high, but I'm thinking they would look very cute made from left-over sock yarn. I'm...

Great Seahorse Dog Toy!

Posted by Rill in News | 0 comments When my puppy Farfl went into the vet's today to have her stitches removed following her spay, she was whimpering and crying with nerves. She did not enjoy her previous visit at all! I felt guilty so I looked for a toy to buy her as a kind of consolation prize for having to go back there so soon. I couldn't believe it when I found a seahorse - perfect! It's from a great company called West Paw Design - they create dog and cat toys from recycled materials. The seahorse is made from recycled plastic bottles - it's fleece material. The toy is very soft and durable and wasn't significantly more expensive...

How to Clean Artificial Tank Plants

Posted by Rill in How To | 4 comments Artificial plants make great hitching posts for seahorses. But after a while they get dirty. Grimy. Gunky. Nasty-looking. How do you clean them? It's not that hard. Just follow these simple steps for clean, algae and mold-free plants. One note of caution before we start - never use detergent or bleach as residues from these products can poison your seahorses, other fish or live plants in the aquarium. It's just not worth the risk and it's completely unnecessary to use them. Gently remove the plant in question from the tank. Be careful not to disturb the substrate or other plants if you can possibly...