amigurumi bears

eva started preschool last week (just two afternoons a week), and in order to help her transition, i sat at school with her for the first two days. hmm, what to do with my hands? as i've gotten closer to the end of my pregnancy, i've been less absorbed in crafts (as you may have noticed), so i had nothing (portable) in progress.

i bought the kyuuto amigurumi book a while back, and decided this was a good opportunity to put it to use. i made a tiny orange bear for the baby (which thrilled eva to no end), and then she decided that next i needed to make a green bear for her. so, i made a version of the striped bear project in the book (eva said no stripes, so i omitted those, but liked the size of this bear -- there are three sizes of bears alone offered in the book, let alone a whole assortment of other animals...) i went ahead with plastic eyes for eva's bear, but just embroidered on some eyes for the baby's bear for reasons of safety.

i really like this book -- for about $10 you really can't go wrong. i mean, sure, after you do one or two, you can pretty much make up any sort of amigurumi you want. but, even if you're making up your own patterns, this can still be really useful as a general guide for sizes and patterns of stitch increases, etc.

so, now we have a big sister bear to go with the baby bear. i've hid it from eva so far, so it can be a present ("from the baby" so to speak) after the birth. i'm amazed she hasn't asked for it (the typical toddler "out of sight out of mind" thing), but i'm excited because i know she's going to love it. after all, she squealed and came running when she saw the baby's bear...

(oh, and see my next post for my cool stitch marking trick. very useful for amigurumi or any crochet in the round.)