You follow your katra, and you can do anything

The Christmas sweatshop is still plugging along.  Or whatever a sweatshop of one would do.  I got two presents finished, two almost done, and made an ornament for my grandparents' tree.  And I haven't gotten around to taking pictures of any of this--some of it I can't post until it's in someone else's hot little hands, and the ornament is two states away.

The ornament is another Ana Paula Rimoli pattern.  So far I've made about three of the little trees with light green Vanna's Choice and Lion Brand Holiday Homespun.  I hate working with Holiday Homespun, but it does make nicer trees.  I'd like to make two of the birds for Ms. H--- and Ms. C--- over at the school where I tutor.  Birds seem nondenominational.

Finding the little eyes has become my grail quest.  (My sad, ultimately unimportant grail quest, but at least I'm not going to fail to get my safety eyes because of kingdom-ruining adultery.)  Locally I can't find any small enough to look good on my little animals, I hate embroidering the eyes and am not very good at it, and I don't like the backs of the ones I got from Etsy.  Apparently I have now been crocheting enough to have started the slow slide into insanity that seems to plague all crocheters and knitters (or at least the ones on the internet).

***

Tonight I am an orange belt.

I don't even remember doing my third kata.  I know I did something and that it was apparently correct, but the moves just sort of did themselves.  Which has happened before because theater people are crazy.

Despite my lousy mood due to rain and having to drive to and from eastern Henrico in the rain, I stopped at Kroger's after work because tomorrow night I'm making a pumpkin pie.  And I'm making a pumpkin pie not out of any Thanksgiving-style kindness or even as part of my food pusher nature: I'm making pumpkin pie because this week I want to eat pumpkin pie.

Tonight it's Kroger Chocolate Chip Christmas Cookies before going to karate.  Chocolate Chip Christmas Cookies are place and back chocolate chip cookies with red and green tree sprinkles.  After coming out of the oven, they slowly deflate and look really depressing.  They're so crappy looking, Blogger won't even let me upload a picture of my culinary failure.

Which is why these are cookies for family instead of decent folk.

Also I Kroger I have acquired a small Christmas tree, so now Amy has yet another thing to keep alive over the weekend.

Well, it only took me six months, but I've finally figured out Creepy Cute.  Sort of.  Okay, not really since I still can't do the stupid magic ring.  And I have no idea what the Creepy Cute Basic Head Pattern is trying to tell me, so I just used the head pattern from Amigurumi World's tiny amis.

But, still, check out this sweet ass blue devil!  The less said about FAILigator, my other commission from Kristen, the better.  Basically, I have failed Vanna White and her Vanna's Choice Easy Crochet Critters.

Like a light bulb

Damn you, Ink Circles, do you know how many on-going projects I already have?

I need to remember that I'm poor, already have too much stuff to work on, and that the number of reindeer is wrong.

It's not product placement; I just like it!

On my last visit to Target, I found more Lynka frames.  If I am capable of loving anything, I love these frames.

They're perfect for little cross stitch designs since they're small and they're magnets so you don't have to  figure out what you're going to do with all your tiny cross stitch projects that you can't offload on friends and family.

Here is the latest thing after ironing and before going into the frame.  The MiniPop figures with text are basically the perfect size for the Lynkas.

I thought I'd counted it out for "ESCALATOR" to be centered, but apparently I was way off.  Or, because of the shape of the letters, it may be centered but not actually look it (Since it's me, I probably miscounted.)

I should always iron pieces before I frame them, but sometimes that step gets skipped.  And by "sometimes" I mean "almost always."  Exceptions are when I'm actually giving someone something in a frame, and days like today when I've got about four levels of procrastination going.

Here's all of the Lynka frames still in my possession.  (And if you look closely, you can see I didn't bother to iron Life or Death before I framed it.  Oh, Kate, you lovable sloth!)

I decided that the first Kirk I did doesn't deserve a magnet frame, so I used one of my magnet cards.  The magnet cards are sticky on one side so, if I had a career, I could use them to make my business cards into magnets.

Now I just need to figure out what to do with SLUT now that I've publicly said it's not up to my exacting nerd magnet standards.  I would say there's always Etsy, but I had absolutely no luck the last time I tried using it.