Liliana

When one of my best girl friends asked how I felt about becoming an auntie in the somewhat near future in the summer of 2014, I didn't expect to become one as quickly as I did. Her and her soon-to-be husband are expecting the little one in November; I was among the group who received phone calls before the general Facebook announcement went out in March when she confirmed they were expecting.

And I dragged my feet all the way up to the baby shower I couldn't attend (being on the wrong coast) and managed to fail to complete a baby set for them in time. It was only a week late, though, and I personally think it was worth the wait.

I went back to my favorite baby pattern collection, Doreen's Baby Gems, and repurposed the same one I used for Nerenya a few years back so that the little one could have her very first Sailor Moon cosplay. (The wedding will be a cosplay wedding, where the bride will be Neo Queen Serenity and the groom will be Captain America--Liliana, of course, will be the Small Lady.)

After much debating, I settled on bright but still subdued pink and blue with pastel yellow and a white with an iridescent shot through it.

I followed the jacket pattern, just switched between the blue and the white to give it the sailor uniform look and left the sleeves off. I did the bow as I do most of my hair accessories and cozies--chained enough to make a loop the right size, then alternated SC and DC around until it was the right height before gathering in the middle and winding a very long tail around to make the "knot".

I also followed the bootie pattern, switching for the white stripe, of course.

I ditched the bonnet pattern in favor of a simple baby beanie, however, in increments-of-6 rounds and adding stuffed spheres and twisty chains for the trademark meatball head look. For the spheres, I started with a pink magic circle, switched to the yellow and picked up the back loops on the first round only to give the appearance the hair shields were actually set over the hair.

I used PlanetJune's Love Hearts for the transformation locket on the heart and AmiNation's tiny crescent moon pattern for the moons on the boots and stitched them on with the yarn needle. It was pretty difficult supergluing the ends so that they wouldn't be scratchy, but the trick was to press the end onto the glue rather than let the glue soak into the end like I usually do.

Finally, I stitched the bow onto one side of the jacket and made a white chain loop just big enough to fit around it and attached that to the opposite side of the jacket to basically made a large, toggle-style button.

Chibi cosplay perfection achieved.

Digby

When my roommates and I first moved in together, we went down to a local tavern for dinner after the big moving day. It happened to be trivia night and the first thing that popped into my mind when asked what our team name would be was "stegosaurus". Except the roommate doing the writing wrote down "stegosores". It stuck. Our apartment mascot is the stegosaur. Our wi-fi's named after it, all our party invites on Facebook have to feature a themed stegosaur, my roommate who collects action figures bought a plastic stegosaur that lives on our TV table.

But during the summer, I started crocheting our real stegosore mascot.

I used Lily Sugar'n Cream in Cottage and the vague memories of the elephants I made a few years back.

I started with 4sc in a magic circle and continued around about 8 times before starting to increase. I'd add 3 in approximately the same place to make a hump on one side until it was the right size (about 30sc around), sc'd around about 3 times, then started to decrease (again on the same side to bring the hump back down. I stuffed it when it was closed enough to hold the stuffing in. When it got down to about 8, I sc'd around about 3 times, added 6mm safety eyes, sc'd around 2 more times, then decreased so it closed off.

I used the same pattern for the legs as the elephants--4sc in a magic ring, increased to 8, sc'd around about 5 times. I stuffed them and sewed them on with a yarn needle.

For the tail spikes, I made 2 chains of 10 and just pulled them through the end tail. I put a dot of superglue on each side to hold them in place.

For the back plates, I made a chain of about 35, but worked in a corner every 3-4 chs to make it roughly zigzag. I stitched it on at the valley points with a yarn needle.

He lived on the living room table about a week before the action figure collecting roommate brought out his Star Lord figure to ride on Digby's back. They've lived mostly peacefully on the table since, minus the times Digby gets rowdy and throws Star Lord onto the floor--often at seemingly random intervals.

Noah

It didn't even cross my mind when I met a coworker's pregnant wife over the holidays that I'd need to get on another baby sweater, so when he started talking about "any day now," I ran out to Michael's for Bernat Softee Baby in Little Trees and got down to business.

I tried another of my choice baby patterns, this time in 101. It was a bit stop and go for a while, moving forward and ripping back out and so on. The pattern wasn't as clear as the others have been, but eventually I figured it out and made my way through it, slowly given I could only manage one or two rows a day with my wrist.

I opted on a white and blue ch strand for the "belt" to keep the sweater closed, but something that contrasted a little more would have been better. A darker brown, maybe.

Unfortunately, I didn't complete it in time to deliver it before he went on paternity leave, but most of the office had already seen it by time he came back and it was quite the hit. I was very impressed with how smooth and uniform the pattern was--I often get somewhat transfixed by things like that, so I was very happy with how it turned out.