Awesome Things

Look who I got to meet over the holidays!

This little Christmas baby is my brand-new niece Nora. (That’s her mom, my sister, holding her.) She was just three weeks old when I met her and held her for the first time! Weighing just seven pounds, she is quite a bit lighter than my cats. Having little experience with babies and lots of experience with cats, I was making constant baby-cat comparisons throughout the visit. (They’re pretty much nothing alike.)

My Christmas present to Nora was supposed to be a mobile to go over her crib. Unfortunately I got caught up in the logistics of the thing, so the hanging part still has to be finished, but here’s what the animals look like.

Since the baby can’t grab onto things yet, and she can’t even see so well, I didn’t get a photo of her with them. But I’ve been told that my sister’s cat expressed interest in the wool toys. Score one for cat!

Needless to say, I’m thrilled to have a niece. She was an awesome way to start the year!

You know those old-school 3D glasses, the paper kind with the red and blue lenses? Like these:

Maybe you have a pair in the bottom of a drawer somewhere? Go get them right now so you can enjoy the rest of this post!

A very cool person named Jess Mireau took these photos at my 2010 show Greetings from Mochimochi. How awesome is this?!

I didn’t even know that they made 3D cameras like this, but Jess tells me that she used one called the Fujifilm W3, on loan from her friend Cory, who has an entire blog dedicated to 3D photos. Jess is an animator herself—you can see her amazing work at jam-i-am.com.

This week and next I’m in my hometown of Owasso, Oklahoma, to work with my book photographer, Brandi Simons. These have been some of my favorite times in the past couple of years—Brandi is such a joy to work with, and her photos are amazing. Remember this one?

Brandi completely “gets” what I do with knitting, and she knows how to bring my toys to life with hilarious and beautifully shot scenes. She also shot the photos for Teeny-Tiny Mochimochi (coming out in less than a month!), and as you may have guessed, working with her again this summer means that you can expect another book in the future!

Often Brandi will get her whole family involved in our shoots. Her husband Mike Simons is also a professional photographer, and her daughters Sonnie and Sarah are excellent models and assistants.

I so wish I could share the amazing images that are coming from our work this week, but that must wait until the book is published, which will take more than a year! But I’ll be doing some previews from Teeny-Tiny soon, so I’ll finally get to share what Brandi did last year. Stay tuned!