A Brace of Bulborbs

A Bulborb is a creature from the video game Pikmin. Kate recently got a stuffed Pikmin figure (ebay!) and wanted a Bulborb to go with it, but we couldn't find one online, so I said I would make her a crocheted one for my Conference weekend project. Before it was finished we were having fun using it as a puppet, so I asked Kate if she wanted me to stuff it or leave it as a puppet.  Her solution was that I should make two--stuffed Bulborb and puppet Bulborb. I decided puppet Bulborb should be a little smaller, to fit Kate's hand.  She is thrilled with the new additions to her menagerie and has named them Big Gulp and Little Gulp. 



Kate lost a front tooth the day before, so she's looking particularly gappy. Grin!



I've never made anything with a mouth that opens like this before. I made the mouth inside part first (a long oval that folds in half) and then built the rest around it. Doug thought the eyes were cool.




Little Gulp checks out a mushroom.




nom nom nom



Mmmmmwah!

Art Time with Andy

Andy's preschool teacher sent home some of his artwork.  All he wants to do is make letters.

Octopus's Garden (and a Crab)

Stanley the Octopus at the Playground by the Sound is all done! This was Anne Marie's baby, and I got to help out a bit. We've been painting Stanley since mid-August.  It's great to finally be finished, and Stanley is looking pretty awesome!



The bit above Stanley is meant to be the Narrows Bridge, and Stanley is the giant octopus who lives under the bridge. Just this last week they got the "Galloping Gertie" sign attached, in honor of the original Narrows Bridge that collapsed in 1940. The wreckage is reportedly home to some of Stanley's relatives and other sea life.



The last couple of weeks have been devoted to painting suckers.  I got close-ups of some of Anne-Marie's detail that I thought turned out really well.



A Giant Pacific Octopus can have up to 1600 suckers. We didn't do that many!



I got to paint a hermit crab on the back side, coming out of one of Anne Marie's shells.



His name is Hermie.  (Anne Marie named him.)



And here's Stanley getting his urethane coat this morning. (We had some extra help for this part.) We've been pretty lucky with the weather holding up. But now we're all finished, so let the rains come!



We were out at the park last Saturday, so I got some pictures of Kate with Stanley. She thought he was pretty cool.



I painted these Orcas last year and never did get a picture.  Now I have!



Anne Marie in the sucker-painting zone. We enjoyed working together! Hopefully we can do it again.

new dress (and a haircut)

I made another crochet top dress for Kate, using the yarn left over from my sweater.  I wanted the bodice to be shorter than the pink one that I made, but I crocheted it pretty loosely, so it stretches quite a bit with the weight of the skirt, and ended up being just as long.  I think the hang is nicer, though, and I like what I did with the skirt.  It's two tiers, and the bottom one is two full widths of the fabric.   



I love the fabric, and the whole thing looks good together, but after she wore it to church I realized it just isn't going to work right now. When she moves around her shirt rides up underneath, and then she gets this weird gap. So I either need to add something to the bottom of the shirt to keep it down, or just wait until next year and hope that it fits better when the bodice isn't quite so long on her.



I got Kate to model the dress for me along with her new haircut. With hair-brushing sessions becoming increasingly unpleasant, we decided a short cut was in order. (It ended up a little shorter than I was expecting, but it's cute!) Kate likes it, and we have a lot less trouble getting ready in the mornings. This is good.

Andy Goes to Preschool

Andy started preschool!  He's going two mornings a week for two-and-a-half hours, and he gets to ride the school bus, which he thinks is great fun.   (Buses are cool!)



Here he is all conked out after his first day.  All that excitement is exhausting.

We had Andy evaluated through Child Find for his speech issues (I'm not exactly clear on what Child Find is, but something through the schools) and he qualified to get some help through the preschool program. What he has isn't technically a delay, since delay means that the child is still developing normally but behind schedule. In Andy's approach to communication he seems to be trying to come at it from the other side. He's reading like crazy, and he chatters away reciting things that he's memorized (over and over and over), but it's more like he's practicing talking than actually using it to communicate. If we want him to say something we have to write it down and get him to read it. This is definitely atypical. At school he'll be working with a speech specialist.  We hope he enjoys it!

16 years

Doug and I have been married for sixteen years. (Yes, our marriage is old enough to drive!)

Lisa Benedict came over and took some pictures for us. We do this every year--sometimes it works out better than others. We actually got Andy looking at the camera in a couple.  Score!



Color correction was a little tricky, but I love the light!  (Kate is doing moose antlers.)




I think this is as long as my hair has ever been. (It's more "fluffy" than normal from being twisted up in a hair clip all day--it doesn't do that by itself!) I need to get it evened up.



What goofy kids we have.  They keep things interesting!

Second Grade!

Our little girl is a great big second grader!  Here she is, all excited and ready to go on her first day.



She's been wearing this jacket for three years now. It's not as big as it used to be!



Kate has been somewhat less than enthusiastic about going back to school, but we went to the open house the night before to meet her teacher and see the classroom, and then the excitement kicked in big time. In fact she was so excited that she couldn't get to sleep, and I eventually had to put on a boring audio book for her. (Well, boring to Kate, anyway!)

Kate got to start out her year with P.E. on her first day.  That's probably her favorite part of school. We got her some new shoes for the year (not purple this time), but they're still very stiff and they were rubbing on her heels, so when we found out she had P.E. I went home and got her other shoes. We'll have to work on getting the new ones broken in.

Here's to a good year!

Pineapple Crochet Shawl Sweater

I finished another sweater! I first saw this one on Catheryn's crochet blog (which doesn't seem to be there anymore, alas!). That's what got me interested in these Japanese crochet patterns in the first place.  I'd tried it once before in #10 thread, and it came out too small, so this time I used the same rayon thread that Catheryn used, from Elmore Pisgah.  Unfortunately the company is out of business now!  (I know... I'm still upset about that.) 



The back panel is interesting and fun to do.  The rest of the pattern is pretty tedious  (lots of five-chain loops over and over).



I like the hang of the rayon.  It might be just a bit big.  I was keeping a pretty loose tension on this one. 



It's got wings!  I've described the design as "like a shawl with sleeves," which is confusing but pretty accurate.



This one is from the Japanese series Let's Knit vol. 9. It's a very clever design but the pattern is kind of confusing.  Even though I'd done it before, it had been long enough that it still took me a while to figure out what went where. 

I had the sweater in progress but hadn't done anything with it for a while (because I was on the boring part), but then I realized that the deadline for Puyallup Fair entries was coming up.  I spent a few days in a mad flurry of crocheting, and then still had a week for blocking. (Rayon dries more quickly, I think.)  I was all set to take it down to the fairgrounds, but then realized that I had missed the deadline for online registration.  (I knew they were starting online registration this year, but didn't know the registration deadline was earlier than entry day.)  So I didn't get to enter this year.  I was briefly bummed about this, but figured I'll just save it for next year.  These tend to be pretty long-term projects.  I can wait. 

Thanks to Doug for being my very patient photographer!

Painting Stanley

I've been helping Anne Marie Corey paint the octopus over at Chambers Bay Playground. The octopus was installed a year ago with the rest of the playground, but has been naked since then. He's finally getting some paint! Anne Marie named him Stanley.



We've been going out early in the mornings to get some painting done before the playground is teeming with children. We do block off the area with caution tape, but we still do get to field a lot of questions.  "What are you doing?"  "Are you artists?"  "Can I paint?"





The back side of Stanley's grotto. There's a hole for kids to put their faces through to take pictures, and Anne Marie thought it would be fun to have something on both sides. We've been mostly working on this  side, putting the background in and deciding where the pieces go and getting them screwed in place.



I got to put the detailing on the seaweed. (Anne Marie painted all the other pieces at home.) I'm also going to add a hermit crab coming out of one of the shells.

Stanley will be a great addition to the playground!

Kate Swims!

Kate had a couple of swim sessions at the YMCA a couple of years ago, which I didn't feel were particularly productive.  This summer we decided to sign her up for Real Live Every Day Swimming Lessons.  In these past four weeks she's suddenly transformed into a little fish.

The day that she learned how to open her eyes under water, she came running out of the pool yelling, "I LOVE SWIMMING LESSONS!"  She was just so excited and so proud of herself.  We dug out the goggles (which, as I recall, were originally purchased with the hope of alleviating some of the hair-washing drama at bath time) and now she likes to stay under even longer, because it's so cool. 



We got some video for her last day.  Lessons are at Kandle Pool, which has a wave generator.  They don't normally have the waves on during swimming lessons, but they turn them on for a bit on the last day of the session.  (Exciting!)



Kate heads into the pool.



She's getting pretty good at this!



Kate's teacher counts a ten-second front float.




Molly Beecher was in the session right after ours, and we got to see her every day as she was coming in and we were going out. Molly has a couple different swimsuits, and one matches Kate's (so of course I had to get a picture).




The zero-depth entry pool is fun because the kids can practice in the really shallow water.  I wish they'd had something like that when I was growing up!



Kate doing her "Underwater Flying Dragon" impression.



Quite a long way from the girl who didn't want to get in the water when she was little!  It's been great for her to have this experience of learning something new and practicing and getting to be good at it, and enjoying it!