The Very Hungry Caterpillar

You may remember the baby shower I threw a little over a year ago. Well, while we were on holiday in Hawaii, the baby of honor turned 1! His mom, my good friend B, created a little Very Hungry Caterpillar themed nursery for the little guy and the theme carried out throughout the year. For his birthday party she went for a Very Hungry Caterpillar do. While we couldn't attend the party, I had a few little gifts for the birthday boy. The first was a little crocheted caterpillar.

I found a pattern online and followed it pretty closely. The biggest change I made was that you were supposed to connect the caterpillar at the end so that he is permanently in the crawling position. I thought it would be more fun if the little boy could position the caterpillar. I figured that I could just use wire so that he could bend and hold his shape, but I needed a way to keep the wire from poking out of the ends - I put our abundant supply of bottle tops to work. I just coiled the end of the wire and hot glued it to the lid. Simple.

This made the actual crocheting bit kind of a pain because I had to crochet around the wire, but it totally worked.

I wanted to use a few different shades of green. Originally I thought about using two strands of different colors at a time to more closely mimick the caterpillar from the book, but that would have made him quite big and I wanted to keep him on the smaller side.

I stopped after doing two segments of each color.

Then I just had the wire bit to finish up. Again, I coiled the wire and glued it to a lid.

Then I snuck it in the last segment.

Closed it off and the body was done!

Next up were his antennae.

Then his sweet little face - done in felt.

Then his little feet - six of them just like on the book.

Once they were attached he was still missing something.

His little back fur! For the back fur I used a few different colors of self-striping yarn to give him more of the multi-colored look from the book.

I love him!! After finishing the caterpillar I showed it to Y and said, "do you think she'll like it?" Y looked at me all confused, "isn't it for baby K?" I mean it is, but let's be real, baby K couldn't care less - this was for his mommy. I showed it to K the morning after I had finished and he knew right away who it was supposed to be. Success!!

Happy first birthday, little K!!

Bearded Babies



It's Christmas Eve here and K is spazzing out! He is so super excited and keeps asking if I think Santa will come to bring him a present. "Mama, do you think I am on the nice list?" "I think so, K. You're a pretty good little guy." We have gone through those two lines roughly 1,372 times today. Back to the matter at hand - babies in beards! Ha!! I don't know why, exactly, but the bearded hats have cracked me up since I first saw them a year or two ago. I thought they would be the perfect winter accessory for my little ones and also for a good friend's baby. Last night we had some very close friends over for Christmas dinner, including the other recipient of the bearded hat, so I had to whip these up really quickly last week.

I used this pattern for both the beards and the hats. I started by making a green and blue hat in an baby size for T. The same night, I did a grey and green toddler one for K.

It turned out that the baby size was way too tiny for T and the toddler way too tiny for K. Luckily, the toddler fit T perfectly!

The next night, I did a child-sized blue and grey one for T and it fits him just right.

Finally, I made a second green and blue one in the toddler size, but with a slightly bigger hook and it ended up right in the middle of K and T's.

They look so clue all lined up!

The next step was to get the beards done. I did one extra small, for T, and two smalls, for K and our friend.

 

The pattern has you sewing the beard to the hat, but that seemed like a bad idea to me. I figured that all three boys would probably hate the beard, which would render the hat useless. Instead, I sewed two buttons to the inside of the hat and the beard can just loop through the buttons so it can be easily taken off. I sewed the buttons on really simply as well, so if it seems that the beard is never going to happen, I can always just take the buttons off.

 

Hahahaha! They look so goofy!

K LOVED his hat. In fact, the morning after I had finished it, he insisted on wearing it to kindergarten so he could show his teacher. A few weeks ago, we bought him the cutest beanie from Gap, but he won't wear that one anymore - it's only this blue one for now. I am so pleased he likes it, I just wish I would have made it a month ago so we never would have bought the Gap one. When we attached the beard, Y and I both cracked up. It seemed K got the humor in it, so he is happy to put it on for photos, but won't wear it outside. I'm not sure if he won't wear the beard because he knows it's funny and is a bit shy or if it is just uncomfortable.

T doesn't seem to mind the hat, but he isn't super stoked on the beard either.

I gave the hat to our little friend last night and all of the adults got a good laugh about it. The little guy, however, HATED it! He's just worked out how to take off hats and couldn't get it off soon enough. I tried to get a few photos, but this is as good as we got...

I could look at these photos all day. The whole scene was hilarious. K was so super excited about presents that he was being a complete monkey holding T. He was shaking him and shrieking with excitement, scaring the bejesuses out of T. The friend's mom was trying to shove the hat on, only to have the little guy (who is wearing a vest and bow tie, by the way) rip it off as soon as he possibly could.

I know I should feel kind of bad that my kid is freaking out, but really, I just think this photo is hilarious.

 

Merry Christmas!



One Week Old

 

A week ago today one of my dear friends gave birth to a beautiful little boy. You may recall last month when I threw a baby shower for Brandon, well she's the new mom!! Congratulations!

Ages ago I made a tiny Yoda hat; it was for Brandon's little guy. I thought it would be funny to make matching green Yoda mittens and booties. I was mental before the baby shower and only ended up getting the mittens done with the promise of booties at "some point."

The mittens looked tiny to me. I compared them to some mittens K had when he was a baby that were massive on him. These were a tad smaller, but I just couldn't imagine them being much tinier and actually fitting.

I found a pattern online (although I can't seem to find it anymore - if I come across it again, I will link it here) and thought that the design was nice and simple. A lot of the crochet patterns I was finding were quite lacy. Cute perhaps, but not quite suited for Yoda-inspired wear. These work up super quickly. In fact, I started and finished them while waiting for a doctor's appointment to see my baby.

After the baby shower I had a bit more time, but as I've mentioned, I've been exhausted. I figured I would get the booties done between the party and the due date, but they just kept getting put on the back burner.

I'd started them ages ago on a Shinkansen ride home fromYokohama, but there they sat, half finished for a few weeks.

Brandon and I had plans to meet for lunch last Wednesday, so that was my new deadline. I got to work and finished the final bootie on Saturday.

Again, they look so tiny to me that I can't actually imagine that they would fit the little man, but it was too late to make new ones.

Once I'd made the Yoda hat, mittens and booties, I thought about what I would dress my kid in to wear all this. Everything would just look a tad silly. Separately the items are fine, but all together it would look fairly ridiculous. I decided that just to be a bit over the top, I would dye a kimono-style baby outfit grey to match all of the other Yoda-inspired pieces. I took a look through K's old baby clothes and found a long, pale yellow one that he probably never wore since it was too hot when he was born to be dressing him in the long version.

I really did not want to dye the outfit using Rit dye or something with chemicals, so I looked online for natural ways to dye and found that grape juice is supposed to dye things grey. Perfect!

I let the outfit sit for an hour or two and then finally took it out and gave it a good rinse.

It was hardly grey. Definitely purple (and a bit tie-dyed - whoops!). I was so bummed. I looked through the closet again, but this was the only long version I could find. I decided that maybe the color would be better if I dyed it in tea. So I made SUPER strong jasmine tea and soaked the outfit again.

When I washed it out and then put it through the laundry, I found it had turned a nice shade of tan. It's not grey, but definitely better than purple.

As it turns out, Brandon and I (obviously) never met on Wednesday. We talked on Sunday and she told me that she might not make it until then. Alas, she went into full-on labor and the baby was born on Monday. We weren't able to go see the little guy in the hospital, but we stopped by on Saturday bearing the gifts above, and a baked treat as well (stay tuned). OMG is the little dude adorable!!! He's just so tiny (yet really not tiny at all for a 6 day old), and of course the mittens and booties are massive.

Congratulations again, Brandon and Shin! I am so excited to see more of the three of you!!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!!! In Japan we celebrate the New Year by eating a number of special foods - toshi koshi soba (soba noodles), ozoni (broth with vegetables and mochi), and osechi (a whole assortment of foods put into boxes and eaten over three days starting on New Years Day) - and going to a temple to get your fortune told. Last night we ate toshi koshi soba and this morning we had ozoni and part one of osechi. Starting in maybe late November or early December, grocery stores and department stores start taking orders for osechi. Most people buy osechi, and it is always delicious, but I decided to try making parts of it myself.

As we were going to be spending the holidays in Yokohama with Y's family, I needed the boxes to put it in, since I would make it at home and then bring it with us. I went to the department store to buy the boxes, but they were all between $300 and $400! There was no way I was going to spend that much for some boxes that I would then use once a year. I asked a friend where to get some more reasonably priced ones, but she said she had some that I could just borrow - ahhh, much better. So, this is what I made (starting in the top right corner, clockwise):

Pickled radish, sesame gobo (a root vegetable), egg tart, chicken rolled in konbu, teriyaki chicken, stir-fried, pickled vegetables, fish cakes (which I just cut), and yellowtail. We ate it this morning, and it was all quite good. Y's mom made some other bits - vegetables and sweet beans, and they bought others too - sashimi, sweet chestnuts with sweet potato. Man alive, I had a huge breakfast!

It has been a long time since I posted about something that I made. Trust me, I have been making things, it's just that food (and sleep) has taken precedence over the past few weeks. That being said, next week, my little brother will come to visit us for a month. That month too, the blog might be a bit slow, but I will certainly try to post at least twice a week.

Anyway, here are a few other things I made and brought to Yokohama with me:

Washcloths! Not exciting at all, one may think, but I completely disagree. A crappy washcloth makes cleaning the table or counters a complete mess. I HATE when my washclothes cannot hold much liquid and then leave watery streaks all over. I know that sounds pretty insane, but it's true! I hate that and it turns out that both my mom and mother-in-law feel the same way.

Ages ago one of my mom's friends had knitted her some washcloths and my mom assumed they would be pretty useless. It wasn't until all of her regular ones were dirty that she finally tried them out - turns out they rock!!! The last time I was visiting my mom, I picked one up to clean the table and commented on how amazing it was. My mom told me the whole story and later made one for me. OMG do I love it. My mother-in-law was visitng me and also fell in love. Turns out that not all washcloths are created equal.

Since my mother-in-law liked mine so much, I had my mom send me some of the yarn and crocheted a few for her. The first two I made, I followed the pattern that came with the yarn. They turned out quite cute.

For the other two, I did an X-stitch the whole way across. These turned out well also, but I think I like the first two a bit more.

Since it was a crochet project, I really only did it when I had some spare time on my hands. As a result, these were made in a car on the way to Costco, at the doctor's office (the two photos below are courtesy of K, who was taking photos of me at the doctor), and the final one was finished on the Shinkansen ride to Yokohama. Thank goodness I finally finished them!

 

I want to finish this post by thanking all of you who look at this blog. It started off as a way for me to show my mom and her friends what I am up to over here. I put the posts up on Facebook, so I figured other friends in the US, as well as Japan and the few other countries that I know people in might, at some point, take a look. I was not expecting many of my friends, many of whom would be the last people to be interested in baking and sewing/crocheting, to comment to me that they look at this blog. But what I was really not expecting was for so many people that I do not know at all to read about what I am doing. I am pretty sure I do not know a single Russian person, yet many of you look at my blog - it's always such a lovely surprise!

 

Thank you to everyone who takes the time to see what it is I am up to over here. It has been such fun thinking about what to make next and then writing about it. I hope you all have fun reading! Have a wonderful 2013!!