Saturday, May 2, 2009

Buddies for Baby




Around our house, we have lots of "buddies". Buddies are stuffed animals that are treated like children (carried in a sling, fed, get the occasional time out, etc.), used as fun projectiles, and have to be in the appropriate bed at bedtime (although, my kids have started a buddy exchange program at bedtime with one or two of their precious chosen). Buddies are very important since my daughter has never liked dolls....I have no idea why she doesn't like dolls; at one point in her babyhood she was even afraid of them. Buddies take on all roles that dollies would normally take in a little girl's life.

When our son was born almost 3 years ago, my then 2-year-old daughter and I picked out a special new buddy for him. She brought it to the hospital when she came to meet her new baby brother. Though he now has a collection of about 5 special buddies, Mr. Lion is still one of the favorites.

We are now expecting a little girl in September, and the buddy-tradition will continue. This time, I am making buddies. My children and I spend a while going through the patterns on the Lion Brand Free Crochet Patterns website, and chose 2 new buddies for their baby sister (actually, we had to wait a few weeks to find out if it was a boy or girl to see what color yarn to use).

Here is Buddy #1, a gift from my son to his new baby sister (though he would rather play with it himself right now):


Her name is YaYa...which is short for "YaYa Elmo Song" (for some reason when my son sings the Elmo song, it's "ya, ya, ya, ya...Elmo's Song/World" instead of "la, la"). Sammy named her by himself after I had suggested some other possible names. I love the YaYa name though, she's specially named by my baby's big brother.

YaYa is from the Lion Brand Georgina the Giraffe Pattern....clearly I went my own direction with the colors...I love BlaBla animal colors and went more that way.

Buddy #2 is from my almost 5-year-old daughter:


She is from the Lion Brand Pocket Kitten Pattern, though I made some tiny pattern changes as I went along on this one. Actually...quite a few changes, again more like the BlaBla animals...but thanks, Lion Brand for the idea.

She is named Zoey, which is what my daughter wants to name the baby...we're going another direction for the baby, so I suggested that the kitty might appreciate the name.


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Katherine (Kate) Grace, born September 27th, with her buddies! I think she likes them :-)

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Crochet Easter Eggs

Happy Easter!!

A couple of days ago, as I searched for Easter basket fillings...I realized that Costa Rica doesn't really do Easter baskets. So...I wanted to make something special to add to the non-Easter candy. I found patterns for some cute Amigurumi Egg Cozies on the Lion Brand free patttern index. I wasn't wild about using them as egg cozies, though, so I adapted the pattern to make actual eggs, changed the original a bit and then added some of my own special touches for my children who have very specific favorite colors. Here is what I came up with. (Pattern for printing )


The little lambs are a direct borrow from the Lion Brand pattern. Aren't they cute?

The strawberry was my idea for my daughter who loves pink and green.


The striped egg was my idea for my 2 year old son who loves red because Elmo is red. So this egg is the color of Elmo and Elmo's nose. (It's only 9 am on Easter morning here...and this one has already been used to bonk his sister in the face...oh well)

Here is my addapted version of the patern, again.

By the way...I'm very proud of myself right now because this is the first pattern I have used and the first pattern that I have written down. It's amazing, using a pattern IS much easier than just crocheting free-hand :-)

Happy Easter! Christ has risen indeed!

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Crochet Finger Puppets and Hand Puppets

About the time I last posted on this site (I know...I know...it was a long time ago), I decided to see what crocheting was all about. So, I looked up some video instructions on YouTube and gave it a try. Here are some of my first attempts....

Lion, ducky and monkey are not from a pattern. In fact, up until recently, I never used a pattern for crocheting...I just couldn't find exactly what I wanted to make. I think, out of this bunch, monkey turned out the best. Lion is definitely lacking.

Next I tried to make a hand puppet with a opening mouth (cookie monster). He turned out pretty well, the only downside is that only a child can operate his mouth as I made him a little small. While I was practicing different stitches and trying to figure out what stitch was used on a bag that my mother-in-law had purchased for my daughter, I made something that my son determined was Larry the cucumber from VeggieTales. I recently (finally) added Larry's face, so that now, he really looks like Larry. Larry is a little big for a finger puppet, though, my kids can fit at least 3 fingers in.

After I was done with my "practicing" I decided to tackle some Christmas and birthday presents...


These three were for my nephew for his birthday. If any of you are familiar with Sandra Boynton...these are from her story "Pajamas" in the book Snoozers. I was pretty happy with how they turned out.


Elmo and the princess were stocking suffers for my two children. I always meant to add arms and a collar to the princess...but as of yet, she still doesn't have them.

The only other thing I wanted to post here was the Bert and Ernie finger puppets and the full sized Cookie Monster that I gave to another nephew at Christmas...but I'm still trying to figure out who's camera I used to take pictures of them :-) I'm finishing up a full sized Oscar puppet to add to this set, too...so I will post that when it's done (It was almost finished, but the mouth wasn't quite right...so I'm taking it apart and fixing it...this is the downside of not working off of patterns, I end up pulling out and redoing stuff a lot. I think I redid Ernie's head about 5 times...I'm getting better, though.).

Over all...I've had lots of fun with the new crochet thing. I already have a short list of things I want to make for the baby that I am expecting.

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Oscar!!!