I made it in a cashmere merino silk, for a particularly lush feel, 'cause Jed likes soft things. Also, likes mantas. You should see him at the manta petting pool at the Monterey Bay Aquarium; he's just so darn cute. And so is this little guy:
This is Jed’s manta ray,…
This is Jed's manta ray, an eleventh anniversary present. It's really been eleven years since I first hit on him across a crowded room at one of Thida's parties? Wacky.
Pattern available for free, courtesy Roman Sock. I skipped the whole mouth bit, because I like it better without, and used different eyes than she did, but basically, followed pattern. Actual crocheting, very little time -- two hours or so. Fiddly sewing of pipe cleaners and such took a bit longer.
Seriously cute crochet.
I like yours way better than the picture from the site. Good call about the mouth.
And thank you again!
A thought about the pipe cleaners: they work fairly well on the wingtips, but seem to have a bit of a hard time holding the tail in place. Which is, of course, not a big deal; I would like this even if it had no wire at all. But I thought you might be interested to know that the wire-winged cowbat that Ranjit gave me long ago (come to think of it, I guess that was the start of my stuffed-animal collection) has a heavier wire in the wings, maybe as much as an eighth of an inch in diameter (I’m guessing from memory), which makes it easy to pose (and to hold the pose). I don’t know how feasible that would be for your projects (and the pipe cleaners do work fine), but figured it was worth suggesting.
Yah — I hadn’t worked with pipe cleaners before, and that’s what she suggested, so I went with it — plus, they’re easy to pick up at a general craft store like Michael’s. But I do think you’d ideally want heavier wire for real posability. (Is that a word?)