Katie's Captain Barnacles of the Octonauts

My previous attempt at crocheting Octonauts involved a lot of freehanding due to the lack of patterns available at the time (February 2013). I did an okay job, but I was unhappy with how the first few (like Kwazii and Captain Barnacles) turned out.  My foray into amigurumi had just begun, and I didn't know how best to shape body parts or how to go rogue to make small adjustments to an existing pattern that wasn't 100% what I wanted.  Since then, I have crocheted more amigurumi than you can shake a stick at, and when Niki's friend, Nancy, asked if I could make a Captain Barnacles for her daughter, Katie, I was eager to tackle the polar bear again.

Voila!

Yeah, his hat turned out a bit too tall, but other than that, I'm pretty happy!  I used a pattern that actually had been available during my previous attempt (but I had poo-pooed it for dumb reasons that were easily fixable).

I love the Octocompass that hangs on his belt.

Here he is, standing next to the Octocompass that comes with the toy Octopod (the ship that the Octonauts use as transportation and a home).

Compared to a picture from the cartoon (which is based on the hilarious books by Meomi), I think my Barnacles turned out much better this time!

I still need to work on making his head bigger in relation to his body, and his legs are a bit too chunky.  And don't even get me started on how hard it is to find that exact shade of marine blue in affordable yarn. But I'm getting closer!  It's hard to translate a drawing into a stuffed animal.  Even the official one sold on Amazon isn't all that accurate.  So, I should probably stop being so hard on myself!

Stay tuned for more Octonaut crochet projects in the next few months because I accepted the challenge to crochet all 8.  I'm pretty darn happy with how my original Tweak, Dashi, and Shellington turned out last year, but of course I had freehanded most of them and didn't write anything down.  Smooth move, Erin.