This spring and summer have been full of WordPress WordCamp planning activities. As a result, I’ve been neglecting my weekly blog postings for most of the summer now.
You can read about the first-ever WordCamp in Oklahoma here at our website. We have an amazing speaker lineup and our organizing team has worked extremely hard getting all the detail work done. I’ve had the lead organizer role for #WCOKC, which has taken an increasing amount of time each day as the camp gets closer.
Something that caught my eye in the WordPress world is a cute little mascot for WordPress, called Wapuu. This little fellow has been cropping up around the web and is being used and incorporated in various WordCamp’s logos.
What is a Wapuu, you say? According to Git Hub, it’s the official mascot of #WordPress and originated in Japan. Its popularity has increased in the last year or so and it seems about everyone has heard of it.
Our WordCamp team tossed around the idea of incorporating the Wapuu into our logo, but then we ended up using a bison to represent Oklahoma, which I think looks really cool and represents our state well.
I read an article over at WPTavern that Sarah Gooding wrote about a crochet pattern being available, courtesy Siyana Raykovska, creator of Totally Hooked, My daughter, Tracey, is pretty handy with knitting and crochet needles, so I asked if she’d like to make one for me. She enjoyed doing it, so I commissioned her to crochet 7 more that I gave out as a gift to each of our organizing team members. They turned out really great. Each wapuu really has its own personality – here’s a close up of two of them.
I found I couldn’t leave my wapuus on a table or chair because my wheaten terrier, Sophie, is really attracted to them. To chew them up. Here’s a photo I got of her just in the act of snatching my wapuu off a table. To get her to instantly drop it, I had a treat handy!
When my daughter was working on them in a park, a lady saw her and asked what it was. This woman knows nothing of WordPress and wapuus, but she asked Tracey to crochet one for her! So she is working on a few more. She decided to open up an Etsy shop – so if you’re interested in having your very own #wapuu, check her store out here.
With the #WordCamp this weekend, things will settle down and I’ll be back to my regular weekly blogging schedule!