Ukitake Taichou

I have been a huge fan of the Bleach manga by Kubo Tite for 4 or 5 years. I find the story, characters, & artwork absolutely fascinating, & even when things stray into typical shounen (fighting) manga territory, Kubo always has a twist in the story that keeps my interest. I also watch the anime, & really enjoy the Japanese voice-acting, but the quality of most of the animation suffers terribly by comparison to the original artwork. However, watching the Bleach anime with Charlie & Brendan has been a lot of fun & a good way to share the story as a family, so I'm still a fan of the anime, although with reservations.

I've found a lot of inspiration for my Nerd Wars 2 projects from the Bleach manga (for team spirit points, my challenges had to be themed to a manga or comic series). Two of my summer projects were inspired by the character Orihime (the Orihime Scarf and the Tanabata Tawashi, which I made & posted from Japan) & two more were inspired by Ukitake Taichou, Captain Ukitake of the 13 Gotei Bantai (13 protection squads) of Soul Society. In June I made a shifuku, a bag to hold a tea cannister, for him. Yesterday I finished a 3-week project to make an amigurumi of Ukitake, which also completed my last 2 Nerd Wars 2 challenges & this month's team unity project. Whew!

 Ukitake Taichou is not a major character in the Bleach series, but Kubo does such a great job of fleshing-out even minor characters that he really comes to life for me. The 13 Gotei Bantai are the protectors of Souls Society, which in the Bleach universe, is where souls go after they die to await rebirth. There are predators that consume souls & interfere with the rebirth process, so the shinigami (literally "death gods", but usually translated as "soul reapers") of Soul Society protect the souls from predators & also help souls that have yet to pass on to Soul Society (& are stuck on earth) to cross over. The Taichou, or captains, lead the 13 squadrons & are the most powerful of all the shinigami. One of the things I find interesting about Kubo's vision of Soul Society is that, although there is a definite hierarchy, there is a lot of individualism among the different squadrons & individual shinigami. They all wear the same uniform, called shihakusho, but nearly all shinigami have individualistic embellishments, hair styles, & other distinguishing factors that make them all easy to tell apart (which is not common in manga, let me tell you! Sometimes you have a lot of trouble telling even main characters apart). All of the Taichou wear white haori coats with the number of their bantai emblazoned on the back over their shihakusho as a symbol of captaincy, but there are variations among the haori & how they're worn, from captain to captain. And you can often tell a lot about their personality by how shinigami wear their uniforms. Some of the things I like best about the character of Ukitake Taichou is that he balances being strong with being flexible. His character has suffered from tuberculosis for at least 1000 years (!) but he is recognised as a strong person & excellent fighter in spite of having this physical weakness. He runs his bantai as much like a family as a military squadron & his squad respects & adores him. He is very wise, but also can be silly sometimes. And above all, he is very kind. Oh, & very cool :D

So, I decided to make an amigurumi of Ukitake Taichou to complete the "Guilty Pleasures" & "Necessity is the Mother..." August challenges for NW2. For me, the pleasure is dreaming something up & then creating it pretty much as I see it in my mind's eye. I also was intrigued by the idea of knitting the traditional kimono & accoutrements. The other challenge involved making a tool relevant to your fandom, so part of making Ukitake involved making his katana (seen in the above picture), called "Sougyo no Kotowari" ("refusal of the twin fish"). But I'll start with the creation of the amigurumi...

I decided to crochet the body from KnitPicks Wool of the Andes sport weight wool yarn, using a size D crochet hook, because I wanted a firm fabric, but I didn't want the ami to be terribly large. I thought sport weight wool for the body would allow me to use fingering weight yarn for his kimono (or lace weight, if I had to really make things finer). I looked around in some of my amigurumi books to get an idea of how to start the head, but from there it was all my own creation. Although the head is oversized (like many anime-inspired dolls) I wanted the rest of the body to be in proportion, so I just kind of eyed things as I went along. I took only very sketchy notes because I didn't want to obsess over reproducibility. I really wanted to just create. I took notes on arms, feet, sandals so that the second one of the pair would match. When it came to his hands, I needed them to be able to hold his swords, so I divided the work in a mitten-like fashion & then sewed the little thumb to the rest of the hand. It ended-up working really well.

When I stuffed the body with polyfil I added a sodalite gemstone heart to his chest :) something I often do when creating amigurumi. I also decided to crochet his tabi socks right onto his legs, rather than fuss with separate socks, & I'm really glad I did because it gave me time to fuss with the sandals instead :D In the photo above you can see the body plus the hair, wound around an American manga version of Bleach, which turned out to be the exact size I needed to make his hair. I used about 1/3 a skein of KnitPicks Gloss lace weight yarn to make the hair. To make it into a wig, I measured over the top of head to get an idea of how wide it should be (I had already measured the length, adding some extra for styling purposes), then I machine-stitched it all (using a very short stitch) to a piece of paper, off-set because his part is on one side, not in the middle. The paper, perforated by the sewing machine needle, came apart easily & left me with the mass of hair ready to sew to the head with the same yarn as the hair. I styled it & then cut the front hair like Ukitake's. 

Then came the clothes (I felt funny putting the face on before he was clothed :). I decided to use KnitPicks Comfy (cotton/acrylic blend) fingering weight yarn for the kimono & hakama. I swatched it on a size 2 knitting needle & liked the fabric (~6.5 stitches/inch) so that's what I used. I decided to knit the clothes because crochet is bulkier & less drapey than knitted fabric. I also used a mix of traditional Japanese kimono making techniques & knitted shortcuts. In "reality" there are 2 layers of kimono worn, a white under-kimono (& actually, under that would be fundoshi underwear) & then the black over-kimono, but I realised that if I knitted all of the layers he'd look more like Santa Claus than a lean fighting guy :) So I suggested the white under-kimono by crocheting in white along the edges of the neckline & sleeves. I also suggested the kimono lapels with strategically placed decreases, rather than knitting on another piece like a kimono usually has. I made the kimono to fit the crocheted body by measuring, adding ease & using the swatched gauge to calculate it all.

Next came the hakama (trousers). Again, I had really wanted to make them with all the pleats that make them look so cool in real life, but that would have made them impossibly bulky, so I made decreases to the waistline instead.

I did add the traditional ties, with the black ones in front & white ones in back, wrapping around to the front (the white obi belt is a particular characteristic of the shihakusho worn by shinigami & not usually found on Japanese hakama). The decreases are actually openings in the side of the hakama, which is just how they're usually constructed. All of the kimono sleeves are also open at the under-arm which is traditional.

Next I made the waraji sandals, which are woven from plant materials in real life (kind of like a basket). I crocheted them from 10/2 pearl cotton with a size 6 steel hook, using manga depictions as a guide.

Then came the face. I was a bit worried about the face, but I drew a picture of what I was aiming for (an intense look, rather than cute, since he was going to be holding swords, for goodness sake!) & used fingering weight wool to get better detail. I used black & brown (his eyes are a lovely brown in the anime :) & the embroidering went very well. I like how it turned out.

Since I was waiting for the wool for his haori coat to come in the mail, I decided to make his katana next. This is another one of those parts of this project that I thought hard about before it all coalesced in my brain. In the Bleach story, all shinigami have special katana called zanpakutou, or soul swords. These zanpakutou look like normal Japanese katana, but they have particular powers that resonate with the inherent abilities of the shinigami. They allow the shinigami to become more powerful over time, if they train well & have a good relationship with their zanpakutou. Eventually shinigami learn to "release" their zanpakutou into more powerful forms, their shikai & bankai. The zanpakutou actually change shape with each release. Ukitake is one of the oldest of the shinigami taichou & his bankai has not been seen yet (he's so powerful in shikai he hasn't had to use it yet :). His zanpakutou is the only one in Soul Society to actually split in two when he releases his shikai (by reciting a poem: "Wave become my shield, Thunder become my sword!"). The two swords are connected in the middle by a long strap that has metal tags hanging from it. When in shikai, Ukitake can absorb attacks & then turn them back on his attacker. 

To make the zanpakutou, I used 10/2 pearl cotton & the size 6 steel hook again, plus 2 wooden skewers, some wire & jump rings, & some metal beads which were the closest thing I could find to the zanpakutou's metal tags in the Fire Mountain bead catalogue. I have yet to see a colour picture of Ukitake's zanpakutou in the manga, so I went with the colour scheme from the anime. The handles & strap are maroon, the parts below the jutte (prongy bits) are grey, & the rest of the katana & jutte are black with grey edging along the main katana. I crocheted the handle & grey areas in the round, to fit the skewers, then crocheted the rest of the length of the skewer in black, back & forth in rows, attaching it to the grey as I went, & then wrapped it around the rest of the skewer & crocheted it all together lengthwise with the grey. I did the jutte prongs similarly, but around wire, which I bent at the end & slipped into the crochet around the skewers, sewing them into place. The guards are in gold, crocheted in the round. The strap with its metal tags is attached to jump rings sewn to each katana by little wire fasteners that I made. I had to add the fasteners or he wouldn't ever be able to put the zanpakutou down :) These took all day to make & nearly burnt me out, all that tiny crochet work in the round. Whew. But I did it!

Last of all was the haori coat, symbol of being a captain in the 13 Gotei Bantai (& my team unity project for August). Haori are usually lined, & according to the Bleach character books, Ukitake's lining is a reddish brown colour (which is why I had to order yarn, since I didn't have the right colour on hand). I used KnitPicks Palette fingering weight wool yarn & size 1 needle (gauge ~7 stitches/inch) to make it. I wanted a finer fabric than the kimono because the lining would add bulk to the whole thing. As I was watching the Bleach anime for ideas I noticed that the haori were split in the back, which really gave me pause. Making the thing in one piece with the lining (which is the traditional way to make a haori coat) was going to be tricky enough without a split in the back... Luckily, when rereading the manga I saw that the haori are NOT split... big sigh of relief!!! As with the kimono, I measured the ami, added ease, did my calculations based on the swatched gauge, & cast-on. I used a crocheted provisional cast-on, knitted a few rows, then made purl turning row for the hem. Before I started the decreases for the fronts I added the black decoration that all the captain's haori have, using fair isle technique. I split the knitting at the underarms, knitted sides & back separately, then left everything at shoulders & neck on waste yarn to deal with later. I did the embroidery on the back next, before there were too many things hanging off of it (I like to leave long tails for sewing or grafting, so there were already many hangers-on). 

The back embroidery was much more difficult than the face, for some reason. The diamond shape has the kanji for the number 13 in it, because Ukitake is captain of the 13th squadron. Then I pulled-out the provisional cast-on & started knitting up in hazelnut, decreasing a total of 4 stitches at first to make it slightly smaller inside, & then mirroring the shaping of the outside of the coat. Then I kitchenered shoulders (4 of them!) & picked-up for sleeves (4 of them!) & did my best not to let this last bit of knitting do me in... I kitchenered the lining to the outside at the sleeves & neckline, & then sewed the rest together. The haori took 3 days to make. But it fits him, & it works!

So here he is with all of his accessories :) 

And put-together again. All-told, I spent 3 weeks making this amigurumi. It's one of the largest projects I've made in a long time. I am very pleased with how he turned out & feel very satisfied by the creative process of making him. For fellow ravelers, the project page is here. Thanks for reading all the way through this very intense project!!

Nerd Wars 2!

The second round of the Nerd Wars over on Ravelry began on June first & this my first time ever participating in such an event. I have been blogging some of my contributions to the Guild Wars over at Ravelry's Ankh-Morpork Knitter's Guild (such as Nanny Ogg's Best Hat Tea Cosy, Granny's Frogs, Magrat's Amulets, Granny's Shawl, and Perdita's Shawl) & have had a great time dreaming up Discworld-inspired creations. It's really fueled my creativity. One day, while perusing the forums at the A-MKG, I found a link to something called "Nerd Wars". Life hasn't been the same since... I'm lucky to have found the Nerd Wars between rounds because, although you can jump in & participate as  Ninja Warrior, I am having a lot of fun participating as a member of a team.

To rewind a bit, the Nerd Wars is set up as teams of various nerdy fandoms, like Star Wars or Dr. Who, or video games, and then during the 3 months of the Wars you are presented with 6 challenges every month on various topics like "Giving Geeks" (giving to charity) or Science (making something to illustrate a scientific principle). The topics stay the same throughout the Wars, but the specific challenges change every month, & each challenge must be submitted within the calendar month. Still with me?

There's also another category called "Dissertation" where you can propose a challenge for just you to complete that you think will take you 3 whole months to do. These have to be approved by the mods in that thread. All completed projects are scored, with points going to your team. You get extra points if you can theme your projects to your particular team's fandom, which sometimes requires a lot of creative thinking :) The folks over at Nerd Wars are a lot of fun, & although I don't post as much as some on the forums (I get a bit tongue-tied when posting on forums- sounds weird, but it seems to bring out the worst of my aspie-tendencies) I really enjoy reading the forums, especially the Otaku Lounge & the Photo Dominos threads. I really am in awe of the organiser, Eyeamelise. I can't imagine what it took/takes to put together such an amazing event.

The team I was assigned to (I got my first choice!) is Team 4-Panel, which is dedicated to comics & manga. It may seem that the Star Wars team was a more natural choice (& it was my second choice) but I felt that, due to my present immersion in manga & anime in both Japanese & English (see my left sidebar for more info on this :), I thought I'd find more inspiration on Team 4-Panel.

So far, I have submitted (& had approved) a dissertation & also 2 completed projects. I am really excited about all of my projects because I decided, after talking to my friend Momo in Japan, that I would donate the bulk of my Nerd Wars 2 output to the Touhoku earthquake survivors through Knit for Japan, a charity I found on Ravelry.

For my dissertation I proposed to knit 14 (one for each week of Nerd Wars 2) children's hats to send to Japan for the earthquake survivors. I will theme all of the hats to various manga. Pictured above is my dissertation swatch, which I'm calling the Yotsuba Hat :) Yotsuba is the name of the manga right below the hat, as well as the little girl on the cover. Her name means "4 leaves" & I picked the colour pattern because it reminded me of Yotsuba's hair (green & in 4 ponytails) & name. I made the hat from KnitPick's Swish DK yarn with size 1 & 2 needles, & my own pattern.

This is my contribution to the "Giving Geeks" category, which this month asks us to contribute an item of baby clothing to a hospital or charity. I made an infant cap & mitts set to send to Japan (the challenge asks us to include the package you'll be sending in the picture). The yarn is shibori-dyed Knitpicks bare sock wool that I dipped in indigo. The knitted-up yarn makes me think of a starry sky, which works beautifully with the manga "Twin Spica", about young people training to be astronauts.

And here is Pikachu, whom I made for the scientific challenge on the topic of lightning. My son wanted me to make a Pikachu, so this little Pokemon will hang around with us as a souvenir of the Nerd Wars :) I used the book you see behind him in the picture, which is from Japan & just full of Pokemon-inspired patterns for kids' clothing & toys. I'll be using it again for my dissertation, I'm sure! The Pikachu I made is a mini version, crocheted with KnitPick's Palette fingering weight yarn & a size c/2/2.75mm hook. The pattern has you make his tail & feet from felt but I crocheted them instead. He really looks like he's going to give you a hug, doesn't he?

I'm looking forward to posting my further adventures in Nerd Wars 2 creations. I've got a Naruto-inspired hat for my dissertation started, & I think there's a pair of child's mittens on board next for one of the challenges. Stay tuned...!

Brendan's Story

A little over  year ago my son Brendan was in the process of writing a story in Japanese. He had just finished the level 2 book he was using for Japanese lessons & our teacher suggested he do some outside-the-book learning before starting the next level. They decided to write a story, so Brendan thought up one about a fox and a rabbit. I it just happened to be around Easter time, & I had made him a bunny holding a carrot amigurumi for his Easter basket. As I mention in this post, I was in the middle of a big amigurumi project anyway, so I offered to make a fox so we could illustrate his story with photos & turn it into a picture-book (btw- amigurumi is the Japanese word for toys & figures made by knitting or crocheting).  The story ended-up involving a fish as well, so I designed a tiny fish to the scale of the other guys (they're about 2"- 2 1/2" tall).

The bunny pattern is from a book my friend Momo brought me from a trip home to Japan, called "ちさなかわいいあみぐるみと小物”　which means "small, cute amigurumi and small things". The book is from the レティブティックシリーズ no.2761, published by the Hamanaka Yarn Company. The fox pattern is from Tamie Snow's tiny Yarn animals. I used KnitPick's Pallette fingering & a size C/2/2.75 needle, to get a firm fabric.

The first page of the story goes like this:

あるひ、いたずらなきつねくんは、かわいいうさぎちゃんにあいました。いたずらなきつねくんは、いいました。

「うさぎちゃん、いっしょにあそびませんか。」

かわいいうさぎちゃんは、こたえました。

「はい、あそびましょう。でもどこであそびましょうか。」

いたずらなきつねくんは、いいました。

「おおきないわは、どうですか。」

かわいいうさぎちゃんは、こたえました。

「はい、いいですね。 そうしましょう。」

It means, basically, "One day a mischievous fox met a cute bunny. The fox said, cute bunny, let's play! The bunny agreed, but wondered where they should play. The fox suggested a large field nearby, & the bunny agreed."

Brendan's words are more interesting, but that's the gist of it :) The story goes on to tell how they played for a while, then went to the river for a drink, where they met a fish who was hurt. So they took him to the fish doctor (on the fox's back :) and after he was well they took him back to the river (aka watery blue scarf :) & he thanked them. Brendan came up with not only the story, but as is common in Japanese stories, a page describing the characters & an author page. Then we took the camera out to the back yard & created the different scenes, along with Shizuka, our Japanese teacher. It was a lot of fun. Brendan typed it all himself on the laptop, & spent a lot of time learning how stories in Japanese are punctuated (how to indicate quotes, etc.). This process helped him with his understanding of punctuation in general, so that he does it really well in English now, too :) After it was all done, he translated his story into English, put the Japanese into superscripts below, & we sent the story to some kids in Japan that we know, since they are taking English lessons.

Here is the picture from the author page, Brendan with his (& my) creations. It was such a fun collabouration.  I hope we get to do something like this again some day :) 

Rainbow Bunnies!

Drumroll please.... :) Here they are! A cheery rainbow of bunnies.

All with pink pom-pom tails :)
I was out in the late afternoon sun photographing them & my neighbours came over to see them (as the rainbow was quite clear, even at a distance).

They're all about 4" tall (with some slight variations). I used Rebecca Danger's Bunny Nuggets pattern, & go into more detail about the modifications I used on the pattern in this post. I'm so happy they're done!

Plus, the rest of the DK yarn is in, so I can start to finish the Grandala cowl!! :)

Some beginnings...

Well, I've had a lot of ideas lately, & they've added up to starting three different projects, but as my crafting time is divided between these three projects, I have no idea when they'll be done! (Not to mention that there's a new set of Guild Wars over at Ravelry's Ankh-Morpork Knitter's Guild...) So I thought I'd share the works in progress.

At top is my lately-much-used basket of KnitPicks Swish DK superwash wool. I was inspired by Alice's Do You Dare to Wear Granny Square post to start my own granny square cowl. I decided to use her Grandala Square instead of a regular granny, though, extending it a bit to be the right size. (On a side note, my 9th-grader son has been studying geometry in school & decided to work-out the area of the whole Grandala, & then the areas of the circle in the middle & the square on the outside, just for fun. I wish I could do that...) I made green, blue, & purple squares, but have decided to wait on the rest (Alice used 7 squares for her cowl) until an order of additional colours of yarn comes in.

Also in the basket are one completed & one half-finished Bunny Nugget, which I found from following a link on Alice's blog to this blog.

These bunny nuggets are so cute, I just had to start making a rainbow of them for myself!

I did change the pattern, which has you make it on 3 double-pointed needles, bind-off the top of the head, knit the ears separately, then sew them on. I am a relentless fusser, & prefer to knit as much all at once as I can, rather than sew things up. So here's the orange one with the first ear still on the needle. First I made it on 2 circular needles because I prefer this technique (I used size 1 needles because I knit very loosely & this pattern calls for a firm gauge). I basically stopped where she has you bind-off, knit the first 3 stitches of the next round, put them & the last 3 from the other needle on a piece of yarn (you can see it there), do a 3-needle bind-off on the middle stitches, fudge the last bind-off so there are 3 stitches remaining on each needle, then continue around on 6 stitches for 15 rounds. After finishing the first ear, I pick up the 3 on each side on the 2 circular needles, plus one along the bound-off edge (which I knit together with the first stitch in the round) & knit the second ear the same.
Then I added button eyes,embroidered the nose, made the pom-pom tail, stuffed it, & sewed an overcast seam on the bottom. The bunny sits up because of the tail. I think I'll make the eyes with different buttons, so they have some personality :)

The third project is my next pair of lacy socks!

I am very psyched about these. I plugged the Vine Lace pattern from Barbara Walker's 2nd pattern treasury into my basic sock template (mentioned here) & I really like how it's coming out. One thing I'm discovering is how difficult it is to photograph lace knitting. When I got close (to see the pattern) with my flash camera, the flash made the picture washed-out, so I tried to use my iphone camera, but it's kind of dark. I'll keep experimenting, because this lace is so pretty! I'm using KnitPicks Stroll Tonal sock wool in Gypsy (which is on sale right now!) & I just really like it.

So much to do. I'll keep you posted as to my progress :) 

Granny Weatherwax's Frogs :)

Hi All! Another break between natural-dyeing posts, here's my second contribution to Guild Wars 2 over at the Ankh-Morpork Knitter's Guild at Ravelry. They are the very relieved frogs in Granny Weatherwax's kitchen (Guild Wars Challenge 1 is items found in a witch's kitchen). Why are they relieved? you may ask... Well, Granny fished them out of the kettle before putting it on the fire for tea (a running gag in Terry Pratchett's Disc World books).

I made them from the frog pattern in Tamie Snow's tiny yarn animals book, in 3 colours of KnitPicks' Pallette (fingering) green. I used a size C/2.2.75mm hook & small black buttons for the eyes, mouths embroidered in black Pallete. Each little (~ 2 1/2" tall) frog has a mother-of-pearl heart inside, along with the stuffing. I got in the habit of doing this when I made the guys on my main blog pic last Spring. I made the froggies over 3 days this past week, the idea for them having just popped into my mind...

Having hopped off the flowery tea cup, they are now on the shelf above the sink (making some new friends), still feeling relieved...

Bertie the Bus

While my son Brendan was in elementary school he was fortunate enough to have had the same consultant teacher, Cherie, from 3rd grade to 8th grade. Not only was Cherie just about everything you'd want in a consultant teacher, patient, creative, resourceful, & smart, she is also a lovely person. About when we transcended "team" and became family I'm not sure, but it may have been around the time she had her first son, who celebrated his 3rd birthday last week. Even during the summer vacations we'd try to get together with Cherie & Nick at least once to catch up & play (no work allowed!). Last February we welcomed Nick's little brother, Matt, to our extended family :) And now, since Brendan's no longer in elementary school, we have to do some planning in order to see Cherie & her guys (husband Scott included). Yesterday evening we all got together for dinner & trains & birthday prezzies- yay!

The trains are a big part of visits to our house, since Nick adores Thomas the Tank Engine just like Brendan did! It is so much fun (& nostalgic) to get Brendan's trains & track out & watch them go for it. The Thomases were one of my favourite parts of Brendan's early childhood. We started with the little figure 8 track & moved quickly into more track & accessories and larger, more elabourate layouts (that was my fun). We immersed ourselves in the big book of stories, the videos, & Brendan's first movie in a theatre was "Thomas and the Magic Railroad" when he was four. And although the Thomases have been put away for many years (replaced by nearly a million legos, I think) Brendan had as much fun playing trains yesterday as Nick did :)

For Nick's birthday I decided to make something practical plus something fun. Practical was the stripey earflap hat and fun was my attempt to make Bertie the Bus as an amigurumi. I had thought of doing Thomas but all the different planes & shapes that make up a tank engine made it hard to wrap my head around, but a bus is, essentially, a rectangle, and I can crochet rectangles!!

I wanted all the embellishments to be well tacked-on (because of baby brother), so I opted to crochet the eyes rather than use buttons. I crocheted half a circle with black & then the other half and next round with white, to give the eyes some character, & I like how they turned out. The wheels & windows are all circles & rectangles, with an embroidered smile, and the only other fancy bit was the back bumper, where I used South American crochet to carry 2 colours so I could have a contrast license plate. I didn't want it to be too big for him to grab easily, so I used KnitPicks Comfy cotton fingering weight yarn and a size C/2/2.75mm needle to make a firm fabric, then stuffed it with fibrefill.

And, true to 3-year-old form, Nick was happy to let baby brother model his hat, but he did have Bertie the Bus join in the train play, which made me very happy! :)

The story of these little guys...

amigurumi 2, originally uploaded by You *can* knit with a lightsaber.

This basketful of fun was (were?) the end-of year presents for Brendan's teachers & school staff members this past Spring. Brendan had attended this school since 1st grade, so we were about as entrenched as you could have been at this school. It was a wonderful school, full of wonderful people, and as this was Brendan's final year there, we wanted something special to give to those special folks.

I'd started making amigurumi (the Japanese word for knitted or crocheted, stuffed toys) back in February, when my friend Momo brought a book of amigurumi masukotto (needlework mascots) patterns from Japan.

I wasn't very confident at first, because I was worried that I wouldn't be able to put the bodies together right, or the faces would look weird. But from the first, it all seemed to flow. I started with a teddy for my purse, & then made mascots for friends. I made a rabbit holding a carrot for Brendan's Easter basket (which later became the character in a book he wrote- more on that another time) & he really liked it. So when I suggested mascots for his teachers, as a little bit of Brendan to keep with them after he left, he liked the idea. I just made different ones that caught my fancy, & when we had enough he assigned them to each person. I found cute, little gift bags at JoAnn's to package them in, & I just wrote on the bags (the To~From part) with sharpies & tied them with fun ribbons.

I think the giftees enjoyed receiving them (& hopefully still are enjoying them :). Brendan had fun giving them, for sure. And- most of them have gemstone hearts, an idea that hit me as I was creating them, based on an idea from "Gakuen Alice" (see the manga & anime sidebar). So- even though that basket is empty now, they are keeping other folks company, carrying precious memories. 'Nuff said!