O is for Octopus

My first memory of an Octopus is at the Undersea Gardens in Crescent City, California, now known as Ocean World. It was a barge that I believe was submerged below the water level and had tanks with all kinds of fish and other sea creatures.  A diver would swim through the tanks and at some point in the show would poke at the octopus and get him to shoot ink at him. My favorite thing to do was to go there and then go to the Ship Ashore restaurant for dinner afterwords. I think this was my usual request for a birthday dinner until we moved away from the area when I was ten.

Octopi are really smart. My daughter told me recently about  lab that was studying different types of marine life and they would come into the lab in the morning and the fish tanks would be empty. This continued to happen - they finally set up a web cam overnight and it turned out that the octopus was escaping from his tank, opening the tops of the other tanks, eating the fish and then returning to his own tank and closing the top after himself (how polite can you be?).

There are several patterns on Ravelry right now with Octopus on them. I so badly want to make them.  I love the Embrace Octopus Sweater pattern. I think it's gorgeous. I added it to my queue for future projects. I think it would be so beautiful in a charcoal gray background and a light gray for the octopus.

If you click on the projects tab, you can see other interpretations of the sweater. They possibilities are pretty endless.  I wish I were a talented enough knitter to take what I see an apply it to other patterns. At this point I have to follow the pattern exactly - I am not good enough to adjust for size or apply a pattern other garments.

I guess I will just have to keep practicing. Darn it.