Use the Force

This year's Halloween theme: sexy versions of male characters with facial deformities.  For example, if you already own a lot of black clothing, you already have most of a Sexy Darth Vader costume!  And you can bully your friends into a Star Wars group costume knowing that you will probably be able to finish yours for $5-10.

Since I had some stuff I didn't feel like doing, I decided that I needed to make Darth Vader's chest console and attach it to myself somehow.  

What you need:

• Black, grey, red, and green felt
• 1 silver or grey pipe cleaner, one red pipe cleaner
• a pencil
• scissors
• red marker
• Hot glue gun

You could probably use some other kind of glue, but why would you?  The greedy executives of Big Glue have tried to convince you that you need all kinds of glue to glue with because they don't want you to know the truth: if you can't use a glue stick, use a hot glue gun.  If you're not sure how to tell which one to use, look closely at the items you're using.  Are they paper?  If they're anything other than paper, use a hot glue gun.

If you've got a craft store sized sheet of black felt, cut it in half.  You may need to trim it a bit more--hold it up to yourself to figure out the size.  You'll need three thick rectangles of grey and one thick rectangle of red, three thin rectangles of grey, and a short, fat rectangle of green and red felt.

I used a picture I found online to figure out the placement and sizing.  

The horizontal grey buttons have red stripes in their centers.  Hold your red pipe cleaner against one of the thin grey rectangles.  Realize that a pipe cleaner is too thick.  Use the pencil to make the red pipe cleaner into a cat toy, then draw lines on with a red marker.

For the side...thingies, cut the silver/grey in half.  I folded down the top and the bottom to add the shaping.

Mission accomplished!  Taunt your friends for lacking your awesomeness, felt resources, and empty hours to fill!

More Christmas in Dixie stuff

I'm still working on some ornaments for Christmas in Dixie.  This process would be going a lot faster if I didn't hate backstitching so much.

I have no idea why I hate backstitching.  Objectively it should be just as boring as cross stitching, but it just feels so much worse.

The back of these bells is a sparkly disaster area.  But since I changed the ribbon colors (hence the post-it note), I figured I should use a same-family metallic floss instead of whatever was actually written in the pattern.  Which I probably didn't have (again, hence the post-it).

Yeah, the colored patterns never really match up with the actual colors.  I've always found this kind of pointless and/or stupid.  I assume it's meant to be easier on the eyes than staring at a bunch of symbols.

Bon Voyage, Jerkstore!

I had some pink floss to use up and a pattern I "was inspired by" off the internet, so this is part of my sister's bon voyage present.

Not pictured: pink coffin ooze with a spider inside.

State Unfair

Visited my cross stitch at the Virginia State Fair with Jamel and two of her law school chums.

As you can see, not even a pity ribbon.  The lesson here is don't try to frame things at the last minute, and go bigger.  All of the ribbon winners in my categories were big (except for Xmas ornaments, which may have required more skill or exuded more Christmas cheer).

For those of you who don't want to play Where's Waldo with my unbe-ribboned cross stitch, it's the blue treble clef.  And surely you remember the enamored Pikachu.

Should I leave Pikachu in his frame and bump up his Etsy selling price?  I never know if people would prefer to pay more not to have to deal with a frame or if they'd rather pick their own.