Doo doo doo

(For those of you without small children in your family or friend-group, the earworm in question can be found here. Yes, it's an earworm, but I admit it's also kind of cute and it less annoying to me than some of these things are. Another version is here. In case you prefer to hear nominal grown-ups singing it...)

Anyway, this is one of the critters I made over break:



It's sort of a "flatsy style" (the pattern designer calls these "rag doll" style) rather than a typical amigurumi (and yes: it is crocheted back and forth, with turning chains and all, and since I am most used to the "spiral crochet" style of most amigurumi, it took a bit of remembering).

Anyway, the pattern is SpinAYarn's Hammerhead Shark. The pattern is free on her website, but for a couple of bucks you can also get a downloadable, ad-free version that's easier to print* which is what I did.

(*This is a thing, now, apparently: I've seen several patterns on Ravelry like that, some listed in the "free pattern" section, but there's no way to easily print the free version and...as someone who knits/crochets AWAY from any devices, I admit a little annoyance at the pattern being dubbed "free" when it's really not TOTALLY free. I think they'd probably go better in the "patterns for sale" section, but whatever. Maybe that's the pattern version of being asked to turn off your adblock?)

The yarn is, IIRC, Vanna's Choice - my usual selection for amigurumi and I know it's one that Michael's carries, and that's where I bought the yarn for a couple of the critters I made over break, so...it took less than a ball of each, though the grey was getting close towards the end (again, as I remember).

The shark is still unofficially named; I have been calling him alternately Baby Shark (because of the song) or Sharky McFinface, which isn't very original but does amuse me a bit (so Sharky McFinface he might stay). I tried other names like Hamm or MC (because he's a Hammerhead, get it?) and they didn't work. Even tried looking up the scientific name of these things to see if a modification of it would work, and I learned:

A. There are multiple species of hammerhead sharks (I didn't know that!)

and this horrifying tidbit:

B. "Reproduction occurs only once a year for hammerhead sharks, and usually occurs with the male shark biting the female shark violently until she agrees to mate with him" (Wikipedia)

Yipes. Toxic masculinity in sharks?

But anyway. Baby Shark is a baby, and he's also a stuffed toy, so let's forget that horrifying fact.

He's also quite small, as you can see: