Good Job!! High Five!!

Saturday evening I went to my friend Cobi's house for supper with her and her kids. She has 3 year old twins who crack me up. My nieces and nephews live far away from me, so I have sort of adopted her kids as surrogate niece and nephew. They call me "Looie" or "Lolly" or sometimes, strangely, "Lori". They make me laugh. At one point while we were eating on Saturday, Noah saw something on the lawn through the open back door. He made a break for it to go get it. Kyra watched to see what he was doing, narrating his progress to us the whole time, speculating on what it was. When he got the toy and started back the the house, Kyra cheered him on "You got it Noah! Good Job!! High Five!!"

I wish I had someone to cheer me on for the most mundane of tasks!

I told this story to a coworker today and for the rest of the day we were shouting "Good Job!! High Five!" to anyone who came by. Have I mentioned that I'm a bit of a loser? hmm..

So, on to the knitting.

Past projects again today, with the theme being: Stuff I made for Kyra and Noah.
**not all projects are knit**

I made this teddy bear and bunny for the kids for Christmas (or a birthday?) last year (ie 2003/04 ish). The bear was knit with some sort of boucle from Bernat and the bunny, the dress and the bear's sweater were knit in cheap-o acrylic. The patterns are from the Fall 1999 Family Circle Easy Knitting.

He's a little squashed, which made me happy. He looks like he's been loved a bit.


Bunny also looks a little squished. She has a ribbon sash, which isn't so visible here. Her dress is actually crocheted, now that I think about it. The pattern was for knit short-alls, but I decided to make her a dress instead.


Then, last spring, after my job ended (contract position with the boss from hell. seriously. I think i saw horns on his head), I knit these animal sweaters. Both are in acrylic worsted. This was my first attempt at intarsia, and it was actually easier than I thought it would be. The sweater patterns are in the 2004 "Knit It!" magazine.

At the time, Noah was crazy about giraffes. I tried to get a picture of Noah in his sweater on Saturday. He had it on, but suddenly was, er, upset that he was wearing it and that we couldn't see his pajamas (at least I think that's what the problem was). So, the pic of Noah's sweater is from a year ago, and it's a picture of a photograph. sorry.


Kyra's sweater has a duck on it. I LOVED the expression on the duck's face and it was what made me want to make these sweaters. This winter, Cobi mentioned to me that Mr. Bunny, who has been with Kyra for 3 years, needed some clothing. Apparently 3 years as a nudist were enough and he was ready to be dressed. So, I found a pattern somewhere on-line for some miniature sweaters (sorry, can't remember where) and I made him this sweater out of the leftover blue from the ducky sweater. Then, in what will surely be described as a fit of compulsion should I ever be in a situation where someone is trying to commit me to an institution, I decided to double stitch the same duck on the front. Kyra liked it a lot, but was concerned that I hadn't made a giraffe sweater for Noah's blue bear.


**Intermission -- not for you. For me. It has taken me 3 (yes 3) days to do this post. My computer at home (Mac PowerBook G3 series, circa 1996 - a veritable antique) plays these fun pranks on me where it suddenly decides to randomly quit programs with NO warning at all! Isn't that fun? Then, sometimes it decides that it is TIRED! People, it has been working HARD! So it goes to sleep and WILL NOT WAKE UP!! (I might be a tad bit frustrated with the computer.) So, on my lunch break at work, on to the 3rd day of this post... ***

Our final exhibit in this past project post are these monsters. I was trying to think of something to make the kids for their birthday this spring. I had sort of set a precedent with the crafted gifts, and I like doing it, but I had NO ideas. I sort of had planned to get them a veggie tales DVD and was trying to think of something else. I thought maybe I could make them big floor cushions, but couldn't think of a pattern. Animals came to mind but time was running short and I didn't know if I could put enough detail in to do it justice. Then one day I was cruising through craftster (ehem, I may have been at work at the time) and I came across the thread on the felt monsters. I suddenly had the entire thing planned out in my head. Don't you love that? Going from nothing to fully formed idea in seconds. I was still at work ehem so I had to just wait and wait and wait all day.

I stopped at Walmart on the way home from work, searching for some fleece and stuffing. Turns out that buying a fleece blanket is way WAY cheaper than fleece in the fabric department. So, 2 fleece blankets, some fiber filling stuff and some fleece remnants for the face and I was on my way.

Before the gifts were opened, Noah was explaining to me how ALL green monsters are really scary. Um. I frantically tried to figure out something to distract him or convince him that just wasn't true. Suddenly I remembered that Mike from Monsters Inc was green and wasn't scary. Whew.

Anyway, they were a hit (yay 3 year olds!)

Here they are:


And one with Noah for an idea of how big they are:


Whew. Now I can go back to work.