Sunday, October 24, 2010

Your Face is Your Fortune

There's nothing quite like the quiet dignity and grace of dragging a scrap of fabric up and down Ben Franklin's yarn section so you can get the right color for your Catwoman mask.  Golden Age Catwoman, not Batman: The Animated Series Catwoman.  TAS Catwoman was like, so two months ago.

Still, it could be worse; my nose could be gushing blood I could have one of these masks.  I am old enough to remember the tail end of the "plastic mask+plastic smock with a picture of who you're supposed to be" era of children's Halloween costumes.  I remember being absolutely thrilled to have a store bought Moondreamer costume, not some lame costume my mom made me that actually looked like the thing I was supposed to be and didn't obscure my vision!

Like everything I loved as a child, Moondreamers was a cartoon that existed to make me want to buy things.  It had something to do with space and possibly lessons about "teamwork".

If this picture isn't my actual costume, it's probably pretty close.  As you can see in the picture of the character on the tunic's crotch, she didn't actually have the Moondreamers logo or a picture of herself on her crotch in the actual cartoon.

Anyway, it's the Black Kitty Hat pattern, with the same alterations for my enormous brain.  I tried to make an opening in the back for my hair, but that didn't work.

This time I used Lion Brand Wool Ease instead of Red Heart, and for some reason I was able to do the connecting chain thing and still pull the mask over my head.  I think this yarn has more stretch to it.

Despite the solemn vow I made during my last Catwoman project, I did not actually crochet the eye holes straight onto the mask because that would probably have taken careful planning and spatial reasoning skills.  I made a chain and decided that maybe I'd make another chain.

I figured trying to sew things to a mask currently on my face was a bad idea.  Especially since if I stabbed myself in the eye with a needle, I would have to explain that it happened while I was trying to sew a Catwoman mask I was wearing.  Also, I might get blood on my mask.

I would need some method of attaching one item to another item so that I would be able to sew them together while not at risk of yet another moronic injury.  Pins!  But the kind of pins that would not horribly backfire when you removed your Catwoman mask or your analrapist head-stocking.  Safety pins!

You know you've made the right choices in life when you find yourself wearing a crocheted hood with a string pinned to it while crocheting another string from the other side of the yarn.

Eventually I'm going to have to figure out that "MySpace angle" all the kids are using.

If you look closely, you may notice that my mask does not actually hide my identity unless you are unable to recognize facial features or we are in a manga (which I guess is kind of the same thing).

I wasn't happy with the way the eyes turned out on the last mask, so this time I decided to err on the side of too big/completely useless if I try to steal something.  I might do something about this, but then again I am incredibly lazy.

I think the most important lesson I've learned is don't sew your ears to your mask without checking how it looks.  Because then you will get to know the joy of removing the ears while terrified you will accidentally cut into the base of the mask and have to start all over.

I guess finished pics after the holiday?  I feel like you'll all be much more impressed with the finished project if you only think about me staring at you with my dead eyes like the world's least impressive Mexican wrestler.

2 comments:

  1. So when are you going to take the plunge and crochet that Wonder Woman outfit? I'VE SEEN IT ONLINE, I KNOW IT'S POSSIBLE.

    Also, I'm not sure what type of childhood costume is worse--the smock/mask you posted, or the classmate who dresses in the same thing every year.

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  2. Is the Same Costume Every Year the proverbial cobbled together hobo costume?

    Actually, even the same, sad costume being slowly outgrown is better than those damn teenagers Trick or Treating in their regular clothes.

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