Sammy the Sea Turtle

I posted Serena the Seahorse last time and told you that I'd ordered the pattern from an Etsy shop called Squishy Cute Designs.  When I was ordering, I perused the other patterns, too, and stumbled across the magnificent Sammy the Sea Turtle pattern.  I'm not really into turtles, but our family did have a great turtle encounter last summer on our Mexico vacation.  

We had rented a house on the beach and there were lots of signs and roped-off places in our general vicinity marking where sea turtles had laid eggs.  My husband got up early one morning to find some conservationists on the beach right outside our house.  A turtle was out there laying eggs!  We got both kids up to watch and we had the opportunity to watch the mother tossing sand out of the hole and then crawl out and return to the ocean when she was finished.  

When I saw this pattern, I immediately thought of this experience and knew I wanted to make the ornament to commemorate it.  It's a really basic turtle design, but I love what she did with the stitching detail and the embellishments like sequins, beads, and buttons.  Even with all the little shell pieces, it was a relatively quick ornament to make.  And it turned out great!

(It's hard to tell in this picture, but the green felt for the shell is a darker green than what I used for the body.)