DIY Crochet Set – Jellyfish

Today, I’d like to share with you my recently completed crochet project – a cute jellyfish. Designed to be used as a keychain, though I decided to keep it as a small toy ornament. I particularly like how the tentacles turned out – I will definitely use the technique that I learnt in the future for other projects! I love the final result, but this project wasn’t free of disappointments. If you want to see a sad example of false advertising and cutting costs by a brand, keep reading!

Contents of the set

First, let’s take a look at the contents of the kit. It included two balls of yarn: pink and peach. It also had a crochet hook, a needle, a stitch marker, a keyring, a short piece of black yarn, toy stuffing, and a leaflet with instructions.

By the way, take a look at the picture on the box and compare it to the photo on the leaflet. See anything suspicious there? I’ll get to that later…

Contents of a DIY kit for crocheting a jellyfish. It includes peach and pink yarn, a crochet hook, a leaflet with the pattern and toy stuffing — DIY Crochet Set – Jellyfish – Learning To Crochet

Making the head / body

Following the pattern, I started by crocheting the head/body of the jellyfish, using the peach coloured yarn. It was pretty simple: I just had to work in circular rounds, making basic stitches.

Once the head was ready, I added the embroidered face details. The head didn’t include the base – that was done as a separate piece. I added the stuffing and moved on to the next step.

Crocheted head / body of a jellyfish — DIY Crochet Set – Jellyfish – Learning To Crochet

Crocheted unfinished head / body of a jellyfish with embroidered face details and toy stuffing sticking out — DIY Crochet Set – Jellyfish – Learning To Crochet

Crocheting the tentacles

It was time to make the stingers / tentacles. The pattern included three types of them, and called for making three of each kind – nine tentacles total.

Two of the types were made with peach yarn. They were both fun looking spirals. I will definitely remember this pattern, it might come in handy one day if I need to make tassels or something similar! The third type of tentacles was thinner, longer, and made with hot pink yarn.

Soon, I had all nine tentacles finished. They looked pretty cool!

Three peach coloured spiral tentacles of a jellyfish — DIY Crochet Set – Jellyfish – Learning To Crochet

Three pink crocheted tentacles of a jellyfish — DIY Crochet Set – Jellyfish – Learning To Crochet

Making the base

It was time to crochet the base of the jellyfish. It was just a flat, small circle. The number of stitches in the final round was the same as the number of stitches on the final round of the body, to make it easy to sew the two together.

But first, the instructions told me to sew the tentacles onto the base, which I did. The longer, hot pink tentacles went in the middle, and the spiral ones were attached around them.

Crocheted peach coloured flat circle — DIY Crochet Set – Jellyfish – Learning To Crochet

Embroidered pink and peach tentacles of a jellyfish — DIY Crochet Set – Jellyfish – Learning To Crochet

Assembling the jellyfish

Then, it was time to assemble the jellyfish. I started by sewing the base onto the body of the jellyfish. It almost looked like a finished toy!

Next, I just had to add two rows of frills at the base of the body. The instructions said to make them in peach colour, but I decided to use the hot pink yarn instead, for more contrast and a bit of a colour pop. And just like that, my crocheted jellyfish was done!

Well, this set was sold as a keychain, and it included a metal keyring. I’m just not into keychains, so I decided to skip sewing the keyring onto my jellyfish.

Nearly completed crocheted jellyfish in peach and pink colour — DIY Crochet Set – Jellyfish – Learning To Crochet

Completed crocheted jellyfish in peach and pink colour — DIY Crochet Set – Jellyfish – Learning To Crochet

Small disappointments

Now, although the final result was really cute and I like how my jellyfish turned out, it was a bit disappointing too. I noticed a discrepancy right after I opened the box. You see, in the photo on the box, the jellyfish is orange, and it has orange, hot pink and green tentacles, green frills around the body, and light pink blushy cheeks.

But there was no green yarn included in the box. No light pink for the cheeks either (it’s clearly a much lighter colour than the hot pink tentacles). And then I had a look at the leaflet with the instructions, and all the photos had the jellyfish in a simplified version, compared to the box. Excuse me? That’s not acceptable!

The instructions were basically for making a single colour jellyfish, with just three pink tentacles. It looked a bit ugly, to be honest! What’s more, the pattern for the frills included in the instructions (plain orange frills, same as the colour of the body) was just slip stitches. If you know anything about crocheting, you can probably tell that slip stitches alone won’t make lush frills like in the photo on the box. That’s just false advertising at this point!

I was able to salvage this project by using the hot pink yarn for the frills instead of the orange, and I used my knowledge from crocheting the hedgehog a few months ago to make more distinctive frills. I think the final result was cute, but that’s irrelevant. It was only cute because I was able to make some adjustments compared to the original pattern. And it still wasn’t exactly the same as advertised on the box since I was missing some yarn colours!

The funny thing is that I bought this set in a regular, rather expensive store (John Lewis, for those in the UK). Most of the assorted DIY sets that I buy are from TK Maxx, which is a discount / outlet store. Yet I never had a similar disappointment with any of the sets from there! I’d love to know if the set was falsely advertised from the start, or if the company decided to cut costs at some point, reducing the amount of supplies included in the kit, but reusing the same packaging. Either way, it’s not cool. If you’re ever tempted by a DIY set by this brand, Knitty Critters, be warned!