Dumb Bunny

Good news: I finished the second Bunny Blanket Buddy!

Even better: I finished the second Bunny Blanket Buddy using yarn I already had!

I am accomplished crafter who is totally prepared to mail off two baby gifts for a cousin who's expecting twins.  Yes, there is absolutely nothing standing in my way of completing this task.

Oh, except for that fact that, somehow, one bunny is bigger than the other.  I have no idea how this happened.  Or what I should do.

My mother, gentle soul that she is, has informed me that no one will notice and that it's a gift for babies, not engineers.

Unsurprisingly, Kristen has agreed that no one will notice.

Better news on the Bunny Blanket Buddy front: since I spent Thursday waiting for children to finish testing, I was able to make the entire head and body of another Bunny Blanket Buddy for another cousin's baby.  Your Federal tax dollars went to me sitting on my ass and crocheting a rabbit/blanket hybrid.

Most handmade toys are made with love.  This one was made with NCLB.  The first two bunnies have embroidery floss faces.  For this one I used some navy yarn leftover from the Special Olympic Scarf project.

Star Girl

I've been seeing star afghans on Craftster for awhile.  They're sort of like the ironic mustaches of crochet, but less confusing and prone to angrying up the blood.  Since I had my yarn inheritance and a video on YouTube, I thought: baby gift.

I did end up having to buy another skein of Soft White (not to be confused with Eggshell, Off White, or Aran), but it was either buy more yarn or end up with a stunted star.  I still have some of the light pink and rainbow left.

I was considering swapping the pink for Carolina Blue for a cousin's baby, but Kristen has suggested that the rainbow might be too effeminate.  I tried to sell her on the idea of God's covenant with Noah, but she's probably right that it's not worth the risk.

I assume it is only a matter of time before one or both of Kristen's dogs require UNC and/or Duke themed star blankets.

Pichu's ears are too complicated; that's why

Did I really not post the Bunny Blanket Buddy yet?  Well, either you fondly remember Bunny Blanket Buddy as half a baby gift for someone expecting twins or here, for the first time, is Bunny Blanket Bunny.

While thinking of Bunny Blanket Buddy #2 I realized something: Pikachu is just a bunny with thinner ears.  That shoots electricity and fights other animal like creatures for sport.  But in crafting terms, basically like a bunny.

And thus, Pikachu Blanket Buddy was born!

This is probably the best an embroidered face has ever turned out, and I have no idea why.  Either my skills have improved or nothing will ever look as good as Pikachu Blanket Buddy.

Shawl we dance?

This is what I traded Julia for some photography.  The whole thing is done in treble crochet with chain spaces.  It's not a complicated pattern which came in handy as a thesis-avoidance activity.

This is the picture we're going to use for the catalog.  Or the women's magazine spread.

They All Want Cape

I found this pattern on the Lion Brand yarn website.  Also, I had a buttload of wool yarn from a project that I'd never actually started.  And probably never will since I have no blocking resources.

After finishing it, I realized that I needed some way to connect the collar and that I was an incredibly lazy person.  Using my enormous brain, I decided to just sew the ends together.  Problem solved!

New problem: because of my enormous brain, it was a struggle to pull the capelet over my enormous head.  Also, brain size is not connected to intelligence.

Fortunately, I know somebody with kids who is also somebody who won't care that I'm giving her kid my failed projects.

For those of you interested in how light affects textile color, yes, these are the same item.  Sadly, it is not as Barney purple as it appears in the second picture.  I have been told the model's hobbies include watching Barney tapes until her mother wants to scream.

For attempt number two I'd been thinking about just using more of the stockpiled yarn (since I'm usually not going to the same parties as a two year old, and we'd both be wearing it differently).  I'd also been thinking about dying yarn with Kool Aid.  Having seen such an article in Crochet Today, I've gotten as far as buying packets of Kool Aid and thinking, "I should totally dye some yarn with this!"

This post, showing little swatches of Kool Aid dyed yarn, made me realize that I needed to dye some yarn with Blue Moon Berry Kool Aid.  Then I went to Michaels and saw that they had Full of Sheep on clearance in basically that exact same color, sparing me from accumulating more Kool Aid packets and thinking about all the yarn I'd be dying if I ever finished my thesis.

I think I started this while on the way to meet Friend with Kid for dinner.  Most of it was done while proctoring a practice SAT test for one of my schools.  Usually the principal's in there with me while I proctor the fake test, so the past few times I've sat there wondering how much attention I need to pay to the kids while the principal works on other administrative stuff and I just say how much time is left.  I think I finally rationalized crochet because I could, you know, look at the students and say what time it was while doing it, and proctoring a practice SAT test is one of the most boring things I've ever done.  Seriously, on one of the other testing days I started answering the sentence completions questions and reading the passages just for something to do.  

This time I added two hook and eye closures.  The first one's at the top, and the second one's around row three or four.  I'm considering wearing it to work on Monday so my students can see the advantages of not taking a nap during the practice test.

Fighting Evil by Moonlight

This week I'm on break from my thesis (since I can't be expected to work if I don't know what everyone hates about it!) so I've started my Sailor Moon sampler.  From cross stitching the brooch on a piece of scrap fabric, I've learned that backstitching around the circle looks great, but that trying to backstitch the crescent moon is a terrible idea.

Anyway, I figured the top of my sampler needed a picture of Sailor Moon, so I grabbed this sprite from Sailor Moon Another Story which is probably the closest possible pixel image of Sailor Moon's "I'll punish you!" pose.

This is about 2-3 nights of cross stitching, and I'm really happy with the way it turned out.  I need to figure out some backstitching on her left hand, even though it's probably too late to make that crazy hand thing (or feasible at this size).  Looking at it now, I should probably do a backstitch outline around the bow.  I'm still undecided about doing the lines on the pigtails--I don't know if it'll add some dimension (the way the bangs turned out) or if it'll just be noisy.  I'm also going to try to put some "pleats" on the skirt.

Yes, I have included the crescent moon on the boot.  It's basically invisible, but it's there.  Because I care about details like Sailor Moon cares about eating cake.

Tuppence the bag

I've been feeding the birds for awhile, using some suet cages in the front yard and a series of bird feeders out back.  And by "feeding the birds" I mean "feeding the squirrels who destroy everything."  After the squirrels gnawed through several bird feeders, I tried a hanging basket that is supposed to be either squirrel proof or squirrel tamper proof.  The first day it was out, a squirrel climbed inside the feeder and got stuck.  I had to go out with gardening gloves and a plant stake to rescue a squirrel from the squirrel proof feeder.

The hot pepper suet feeders seem to work, but they're expensive.  So I realized that I could combine cheap bird seed, something lard like, and hot sauce to create my own.  Take that, squirrels!

Supplies:

• Crisco from the closet that's probably not toxic since I assume it's mostly plastic and butter flavoring anyway
• Bird seed
• Hot sauce
• The metal cupcake wrappers that I hate
• Plastic straws
• Microwave safe mixing bowl
• Stirring implements

First, melt the Crisco in the microwave.  It will smell like the movie theater from Hell.  And then, once it's mostly melted, add the hot sauce, and it will smell even worse.  You probably think I'm joking, but the smell of melted Crisco and Tabasco sauce has got to be one of the worst things I've even smelled in my life.  It doesn't get any better once you stir in the seeds.

Once this abomination of food-like substances has been combined, pour/scrape/scoop it into the cupcake wrappers.  A cupcake pan would probably help them retain their shape.  Once they're been poured, put pieces of plastic straws in the middle to create holes.  Put the hideous things in the fridge and pray that they don't infuse all your normal food with Hell Popcorn stench.

After chilling and then freezing, I discovered that my cunning plan with straws (to make holes to pass string through) didn't work.  Plan B: drop the horrible little things into a suet cage, hang them from a tree, and never speak of this again.

If I've learned anything from this project, it's that making your own birdseed suet...whatevers is an abomination unto the Lord.  We should all just buy this crap premade as nature intended.  I would just let the birds fend for themselves, but Zoot likes watching them out the window.