Road Trip Safari

We recently moved from Guelph, Ontario, to Regina, Saskatchewan. That is a really long way, more than half the width of Canada, if you’re keeping track. And we decided to drive, so that we could take our car with us without having to ship it (especially when paying by weight…), and so that we could bring our cat without taking him on a plane.

As it turns out, my husband Deep loves to drive and really hates being a passenger, whereas I would much rather do something fun like crochet, than be the driver. So even though I always offer to take a turn now and then, it was a safe bet before we left that he would drive the whole way (he did). So, I packed up a bunch of yarn for a couple of different projects (including yarn for the super-secret project that you will hear all the details about in a few months when it's not a surprise anymore) into one of my shoulder bag carrying cases, and gave up about 1/2 of my already minimal leg room in the car so it could be accessible throughout the trip.

However I didn't get much chance to crochet on the drive after all. There were two main reasons:

First of all, we decided at the last minute to go through the US instead of through Canada (north of Lake Superior) as we'd originally planned. This was beacuase the Trans Canada Highway was washed out (!!!) near one isolated community, and there is basically no way around that section of road. And it would be at least a week before the road would be fixed. So our best option was to go south of the Great Lakes, through the US. This change in plans actually resulted in 3 days of driving instead of 4, which was a much better deal, but obviously cut down on crochet time.

Secondly, our (usually friendly and cuddly) cat Nikko, who happens to hate car rides, acted slightly to moderately insane for maybe 50% of the drive. This involved him complaining loudly using very strange noises, all while exploring the car full of our stuff. As a result, I had to keep my hands available for a large chunk of the time, in order to be able to deal with him... you know, little things like keeping him from leaping under the pedals (and thereby killing us all), or attempting to quiet him down to avoid making the driver completely crazy from frustration and annoyance.

So… needless to say, I didn’t end up with very much time to crochet. There were times when he finally fell asleep, or at least was calm for a while, and during those times I could finally crochet. I used most of this limited time to make a couple of gifts for some friends’ kids in Regina. And that is what this post is really about (I bet you were starting to wonder...)

We didn’t know many people before we got to Regina, but the one family we knew best was a couple where the husband is now one of Deep's co-workers. They have two very sweet children: a girl who is 4, and a boy who is almost 2. They have been really great for the last few months, making us feel like we would have a community when we arrived, and being really excited that we were on our way. So we thought it would be nice to show up with some kind of small gift for the kids when we finally made it to town. Of course, since I'm crafty, I decided to make something cute and crocheted.

Before I left, I made sure that my craft bag that was in the car with me contained my handy little pattern book of adorable amigurumi (that is, small knitted or crochet creatures) animals (this book from Lion Brand: http://www.amazon.com/Crochet-Critters-Leisure-Vannas-Choice/dp/1601404956), a few different fun colours of yarn, and some polyfil beads and some fibrefil stuffing.

After some deliberation (they're all so painfully cute!), I decided to make a purple hippo and a yellow and orange giraffe. Here you can see me working on the hippo, with Nikko (finally!) asleep  in my lap.

I almost didn't have enough stuffing, so I used more of the beads that I usually would, which made it a bit more difficult to manage in the car, with no flat surfaces and so much potential to spill them everywhere. I thought we were going to have to stop at a craft store for some more stuffing when we got to town, but I just managed to make it work with what I had. The upside of this is that they ended up being a little more stable (particularly the giraffe, who is a bit top-heavy as you can see), so that's good.

I also forgot to pack any of the tiny buttons that I usually use for eyes, so I had to improvise with some black yarn. I guess these eyes are a bit more baby-safe anyway, so that's a bonus.

Here they are, the night we got to town, all ready to meet the kids!

We had this family over for dinner the second night we were in town, and I told the kids I had a surprise for them. I pulled out the animals, and while the girl was trying to decide which one she wanted, the little guy came running over and grabbed the giraffe by the neck - It was so cute! The kids played with them all evening, clearly they were a hit. The next day I was told that the little girl had fallen asleep holding the hippo to her chest. She even came up to me the next day and thanked me in a shy voice for making her the hippo - very sweet!

Here is a shot of the two of them holding their new friends. Aren't they cute?

I'll post more about my previous amigurumi creations later, so stay tuned.

Keep crafting!