When Jason and I set out for the west coast in October of 2013, we drove cross-country with a Scalemate plushie named Senator Wyrmser riding shotgun for us. He quickly became something of a mascot for the trip, and every morning we'd set out with a cheerful "Squeaka!" from our traveling companion. The last thing I expected was the little guy setting out on his own while Jason and I were visiting the gift shop at the Petrified Forest. I found some of his vacation selfies on my camera last night, and it seems that he did a good job …

As before, much of my spare time in the past two weeks has been spent making two more Scalemate plushies so I could give one of them to my little nephew Brandon this weekend as a "Hi, welcome to the world" present. I wanted to make two of them in case I messed up, and also to have a choice of which one to give him because they weren't going to be identical or perfect, but ideally better than the first one I sewed. I wanted them to be fairly bright and cheerful looking, the better to get his attention …