Mameshiba!

Hello! It's been a long time between posts! I've gotten very busy over at Ravelry, in the wonderful Nerd Wars game :)  I've been co-captain of the manga, anime, cartoons. comics & web-comics team for almost a year & it's a lot of fun.

One of my favourite things to make these days are Mameshiba. These are characters from Japanese cartoons & their name means "bean dog". They are personable little beans with dogs' faces & ears, who like to share "mamejishiki", which means trivia!

I created a crocheted pattern for Mameshiba in worsted, DK, & fingering weight yarns & have made well over 100 of them since April. I made 60 this summer that I sent to Knit for Japan, which collects all sorts of things for the survivors of the 2011 Touhouku earthquake & tsunami.

I fill all of my Mameshiba with polypellets, so they are like little bean bags, & I always put a small gemstone heart bead in each one, so they all have hearts!

I thought it would be fun to post some pictures of the Mameshiba that I've made!

This is the first little guy that I made, back in April. He's an edamame Mameshiba :)

These are the Amanatto (sweet beans) Quartet :)

Here are cacao & almond.

And all 5 of the coffee beans: Blue Mountain. Kilamanjaro, Colombian, Brazil, & Mocha.

These are 2 of the jelly beans

Here are Ko (azuki) & natto.

In front are 3 green peas & in back are hiyoko (chick pea) & kurodaizu (black soy bean).

This little guy is Renzu (lentil). Since his name rhymes with "lens" he wears glasses :)

This is the Nata (samurai) bean :) He has a mage (may-geh) topknot & a katana sword.

Here are the 60 I made to send to Touhouku last summer. 

I have also been making the Babyshiba, which are made from fingering-weight yarn. They are pretty tiny :)

Here are a bunch, sitting in an ice cube tray. Top row: coconut, banana, nata, edamame, soramame. Bottom row: hiyoko with a lemon hat, daizu with an apple hat, almond with a persimmon hat, ko, & 3 green peas.

Here are 2 coffee Babyshiba.

A close up of banana :)

Cranberry bean Babyshiba wearing an earflap hat.

Edamame with a pod.

To make the pod puffy on both sides, I made a blanket & pillow that fit inside the pod, for nap time :)

And here are 3 green pea Babyshiba up close.

And just for fun, here's our favourite Mameshiba video:

Here are a few more:

Boiled Bean (Nimame)-

Cashew-

Tora (tiger) Mameshiba-

I've used a sticker book to help me with the embroidery.