Be Like Bud campaign selected for American Illustration 43

I'm so pleased that my work for the "Be Like Bud" campaign that I worked on with My Sister Fred for the City of Austin Watershed Protection Department is a selected winner in American Illustration 43. 

American Illusration selected four stills from the campsign to be included in their book. 

It's an honor to be recognized by this publication again! Previously, my spots for Nickeodeon were selected for AI 33 and my video for Sesame Workshop was included in AI 36.

2024 Bank Street Best Books of the Year list

I’m very happy to have Catside Up, Catside Down included in this year’s Bank Street Best Children’s Books of the Year list! It’s in the category of Best Books for Under Fives.

Texas Library Association's 2x2 Reading List

I'm thrilled that Catside Up, Catside Down has been selected by the Texas Library Association for their annual 2x2 Reading List, a list that's compiled of books recommended for children age 2 to second grade. I love that! 

CATSIDE UP, CATSIDE DOWN Included in Evanston Public Library's 101 Great Books for Kids 2023

It's such an honor to see Catside Up, Catside Down included in Evanston Public Library's 101 Great Books for Kids 2023. (Number 3 in the picture books category!) Thank you, Evanston librarians! 

The cat’s OUT of the bag 😺

Catside Up, Catside Down is now on sale everywhere! To get my new book of cats and prepositions, just ask or it AT your local bookstore, or order it FROM your favorite website. If you placed a preorder, check INSIDE your mailbox!

This is my first-ever picture book. It’s a slightly scary thrill to finally have it out in the world. There’s a lot of me in this book—my goofy rhymes, my photography—and, of course, my more than 50 knitted cats! I hope the cute kitties will engage kids and charm grownups, and maybe inspire some people to make something with yarn.

One of the best things about working on Catside Up, Catside Down was collaborating with people who made my ideas so much better. I’m grateful to incisive editor Anna Roberto, astute designer Mike Burroughs, and to my agent, Ammi-Joan Paquette, for believing in my whole deal and turning me into a children’s book author!

Craft Industry Alliance Podcast interview

I recently had the honor of being interviewed on the Craft Industry Alliance podcast. 

The podcast is hosted by Abby Glassenberg, co-founder and president of CIA. So Abby is a pretty big deal in the crafts industry, but I’ll always know her as a plush maker—back when I was working at gallery hanahou in NYC, Abby was one of the artists we invited to take part in our plush toy show! As I talk about on the podcast, that show was one of the big influences on my journey of knitting toys, and it shaped my thinking about plush toys as objects of art and design, and not just kids’ playthings. (Although toys made for kids are awesome too, of course!) 

As I expected, Abby was really easy to talk to, so I hope that makes for an enjoyable listen. Thank you Abby and Craft Industry Alliance for having me on!

Catside Up, Catside Down now available for preorder

I have news for people who love yarn or cats or both: I have a new picture book featuring knitted cats coming out this fall! 

Catside Up, Catside Down shows my cats in a bunch of different places and positions to demonstrate a variety of prepositions. The official audience is meant to be 2-5 year-olds, but I hope older folks will love the cats and rhymes too. 

You can see more and find links to preorder the book at the Macmillan website. 

Animated sticker set for LINE

Biggest project of 2022: The social media platform LINE invited me to create a set of 24 animated stickers for them. It was a blast, and the stickers just went live! 

At first I wasn't sure I could come up with 24 emotions or ideas to convey with my characters, but that part came quite easily in the end, and it was fun to match the characters to the feelings. I introduced a couple of new characters here too, like the bowl of ramen, the lightbulb, and the rabbits (which are now also available as a knitting pattern from Mochimochi Land). 

You can see them all in the LINE store. The stickers are currently available for purchase as a set in select territories including Taiwan. 

Inflation Animations for the Washington Post

If inflation were a helium-filled balloon, we'd be pretty high up in the air right now. That's the premise behind the animations that art director Emily Wright of the Washington Post commissioned from me for an interactive piece titled Inflation Explained: How Prices Took Off by Damian Paletta. As you scroll through, six stop-motion videos automatically play behind Damian's words, giving an informative and playful picture of the ups and downs of the economy since early 2020. 

This project was a blast to work on, and a terrific challenge with all the air physics involved, plus a tight deadline.

You can read more about how this piece came together from the Post's persepctive in this "Behind the Story" piece. And see all six animations from it in this Instagram post. 

Happy Year of the Tiger

via GIPHY

WOW this year started out on a sour note (thanks, Omicron), but tigers are sure to prevail! 

This website may have been a little bit quiet over the past year, but I've got some exciting stuff going on behind the scenes. Namely, a picture book! And a whole animated series! That plus designing and teaching has been keeping me busy. I plan to keep makign GIFs becuase they just make me so happy, and I need to compile all that I made in 2021 and share here soon.

I hope 2022 has many more good things in store for us all!