T. K. Arispe

I created another nerdygurumi design! I thought it would be fun to make a design for Pikaia, the Cambrian primitive chordate that often gets touted as the "ancestor of all vertebrates". Whether or not that's the case, it was certainly an extraordinary little critter! I remember seeing it in a documentary about the Burgess Shale when I was a kid and it stuck with me after all these years.

This pattern was pretty straightforward--all I really had to do was create a tubular "sleeve" for Pikaia's pipe-cleaner notochord (which allows me to bend and pose it in any way I like), and then crochet a fin around the top and bottom. The gills gave me a little bit of trouble because at first I was unsure how to incorporate them in a way that would be accurate, but I settled for tying the yarn on tassel-style and fringing out the individual strands to give at least a good approximation of the look and texture of feathery gills. (At first I tried to embroider them, but they just didn't look right and didn't project from the body like Pikaia's probably did. I feel like the feathery gills give it a little more personality anyway.)