Christmas Tree Worm - Crochet for the Maine Reef Project

Wishing everyone Happy Holidays .....

 I thought this entry was fitting for the season! I never knew such a creature, the Christmas Tree Worm, existed until I began searching for inspirational photos to get the crochet juices flowing. Their beauty including their many brilliant colors, is astounding!

These photos are samples of many amazing Christmas Tree Worm images found on Google Images. These are a few that inspired my piece.


This one is from the http://frogfishdive.com/index.html

This one is from http://morealtitude.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/biodiversity/

A description from the MARINEBIO website says this about them........

"Christmas tree worms, Spirobranchus giganteus, are Christmas  tree-shaped serpulid  tube-dwelling worms with magnificent twin spirals of plumes used for feeding and respiration. These cone-shaped worms are one of the most widely recognized sedentary polychaete worms . They come in many colors including orange, yellow, blue, and white and, though they are small with an average 3.8  cm in span, they are easily spotted due to their shape, beauty, and color. The colorful plumes, or tentacles, are used for passive feeding on suspended food particles and plankton in the water. The plumes are also used for respiration. Though the plumes are visible, most of these worms is anchored in their burrows that they bore into live calcareous coral. Christmas tree worms are very sensitive to disturbances and will rapidly retract into their burrows at the slightest touch or passing shadow. They typically re-emerge a minute later, very slowly, to test the water before fully extending their plumes."

Here is my version.......

Happy Holidays and a Very Happy New Year to you All! 

South Portland Recreation Department Offering Beginner Crochet Classes

South Portland Recreation Department is offering  beginner crochet classes and the Fiber Center's Jan Winsor from Four Winds Farm will be teaching it! Yeah Jan!

Jan is an accomplished Needle Felter and has been practicing Fiber Arts for a while now but when the Reef project came up, Jan was at the ready and took on crochet with a vengeance! Her creativity, real world teaching experience, and fun loving personality should make for a fun class!

The Beginner Crochet I class runs on Tuesdays, and begins  January 17th for six weeks and goes from 6:30 - 8pm This is a great opportunity for anyone who wants to learn the basics of crochet. The first class project will be cotton dish cloths but once you learn the stitches, who knows what great things you can create? Something for the reef maybe??

A continuation of the class,  Beginner Crochet II  will begin on March 6th for six additional weeks and is  also on Tuesdays from 6:30 - 8pm.

For more information or to register for the class, call the South Portland Parks and Recreation Department at 207-767-7650.

Until next time......

New Pieces for the Maine Crochet Reef

Here is a new contribution from our Liaison, Ann Thompson. She is calling it "New Reefling".

Love it Ann and thank you for the contribution!

When Ann is not creating for the reef or teaching children metal art and other artistic things, she is diligently creating her Pewter work which you can see at Little River Metalworks and Bicycle Art Jewelry, for galleries and shows in the Southern Maine area.

On top of that, Ann is hard at work trying to find funding so that we can bring the reef into the schools and pay the required IFF fee. YUP, the school kiddies need to pay to play..... Any context of the reef project that is brought into the classroom falls under their intellectual property rights. See our FAQ page for info about "teacher kits".

Until next time........

Crocheted Zoanthus for the Maine Crochet Coral Reef Project

Zoanthid is commonly known as green sea mat or button polyp.


I found this photo as my inspiration for creating a crocheted version. These are amazingly colorful creatures as can be seen here on google images. This is the photo on a website called http://www.rarezoanthids.com/ that inspired my work.






       This is still a work in progress. I plan to make as many "polyps" as I have enough lime green yarn for and then will crochet the tubular base that they will sit on.

So much to do so little time!

AND loving every minute of it:-)


Until next time.......