Mo' babies, mo' crafting

Remember back when everyone was having babies?  Apparently some people I know didn't get the memo that babies are like sooooooo last year.  Which I guess I can deal with since I bought too much baby yarn.  Also, trying to match yarn colors from memory is not a good idea.

Solution: sweaters for everyone!

Apparently one of the challenges of buying clothes for babies is figuring out what size the baby will be at the appropriate season.  Added to this difficulty is the fact that my family produces monstrous children who grow at an alarming rate.

Since this sweater was for my cousin's 10 1/2 pounder, I decided to make the 12 month size.  Since I still don't really understand sizes, I think there's a possibility they could just put this on the baby now and have it fit. I mean, the baby's not going to care if it makes him look bigger than he is.  Based on the free patterns I've been browsing, some parents put their babies in fancified sacks--this kid should just be grateful he has a real garment.

Also, Baby Gargantua lives in Asheville, NC.  I remember it being cold there every damn morning, so this sweater will still be seasonably appropriate whenever it actually fits.

The main sweater is Bernat Baby Coordinates, which is what I used for the first starghan and the award winning baby set.  For the edging/button loop I used Pound of Love Pastel Green--which is pretty much an exact match for the mint green in His Jeans while Baby Coordinates Iced Mint is not.  Yes, that blue, white, and mint colored yarn is called "His Jeans" for some reason.

Leftover yarn=baby hat.  For the last baby set, my mother said the hat looked too small for a baby that would be wearing the sweater size.  I just go with the age on the pattern and assume that everyone can enjoy looking at the nice matching set and then cram the baby into whatever fits at the moment.

Look, it was either pictures of my cat or gift spoilers.

Crochet Cat Bed

Materials needed: yarn, pattern for something that is not a cat bed, K hook

1. Follow directions for pattern.
2. Set unfinished project down.
3. Cat bed complete!

The ruler is for measuring pattern pieces and seams.  The crochet hook is somewhere under the cat.

Bonus Pattern! 

Papercrafting Cat Bed

1. Attempt to read the newspaper rather than feeding and/or giving all of your attention to the cat (works with any piece of paper larger than a book).

Fat Fat Fatty

I appreciate Mardi Gras as only an agnostic can: it's an excuse to party, and I'm not spiritually obligated to give up anything.  It's not a last hurrah before Lent; it is a hurrah to kill time between New Year's Eve and St. Patrick's Day.

My only problem with Mardi Gras is that it discriminates against people who have jobs.  Hence my Vendredi Gras parties of year's past.  Which took place after Mardi Gras, thus highlighting the benefits of appropriating the holidays of other cultures and using them as an excuse to throw theme parties.

Now that everybody I know is tired on Fridays and/or out of town, Vendredi Gras has given way to Meowdi Gras, a fundraiser for my Richmond SPCA Dog Jog Team.  Meowdi Gras requires Meowdi Gras decorations.  Having a lot of free time in the afternoons and responsible adult stuff to avoid, Meowdi Gras decorations have been slowly escalating.  Did you know that if you take out the decades old batteries, you can still get a Purrtenders toy to purr?  And then dress it up like a sad old cat lady and declare it a decoration?  And how were there two different lines of unwanted pets in the 80s?

To balance out the crazy of putting stuffed cats all over the house, I decided to make a wreath.  Wreaths are sad and nerdy, but in slightly more stable way than cats.

How to Make a Mardi Gras Wreath

Materials required:

• A mother who makes lots of wreaths so you can possibly just find a wreath somewhere in the house
• A mask
• Mardi Gras beads
• Feathers
• Hot glue gun
• An A.C. Moore cashier who lets you use both your teacher's discount and a coupon
• Metallic paint you already have in the house

Step one:  Paint the mask.  It's important to do this before work so you can risk having green paint all over your hands.  Contemplate what would happen if you replied to colleagues and admins questions by saying you fingered the Hulk.

Step two: Wait for the mask to dry.  Rummage around for the crappiest wreath.  Consider what the hell you're going to do to make this straw wreath respectable without having to buy more stuff.

Step three: Realize that somehow, despite years of hoarding craft supplies from forgotten, unstarted, and unfinished craft projects, you only have curling ribbon and yarn.  Decide that you are too damn lazy to wrap any of these things around a straw wreath.

Step four: Contemplate Michaels ad.  Remember that Cabbage Patch Dolls were orphans waiting to be adopted.  Google Fluppy Dogs.  Discover that Fluppy Dogs had some weird, dimensional travel thing going on...but also ended up in the pound.   At least My Little Ponies lived in a free, feminist society.  Well, except for when the First Tooth Ponies sold the Newborn Twins into slavery.

Step five: Oh, right, making a wreath.  Go buy some ribbon.

Step six: Wrap ribbon around wreath while the 4 hour journey that is making a king cake.  Run out of ribbon.

Step seven: Buy more ribbon.  Make the mistake of wearing your red T-shirt to A.C. Moore so an old lady thinks you work there.  Decide to buy skinny ribbon.

Step eight: Finish wrapping the wreath.  Realize that your impulse to wrap it with curling ribbon and skinny ribbon was absolutely correct.

Step nine: Glue beads to the back of the mask.  Glue them some more until it looks right.

Step ten: Glue the mask to the wreath.  This may take several attempts as something designed to go over a human face does not easily line up with a wreath.

Step eleven: Hang this bastard up.  Wait for lesser beings to marvel at this seasonally appropriate masterpiece.  Revel in the smug satisfaction of not making some deco mesh horror.

Just in time for it to be stupid cold again!

A few months ago, I lost one of my fingerless gloves.  I find this very inconsiderate of me since it would've been much more convenient to either lose none of them or both of them.

My cousin knitted me a new pair.  I thanked her by not mentioning that I'd received them and by crocheting myself a replacement for my defective pair.

Oh, and by making the greatest baby gift any unborn child has ever received.

The last pair used green yarn from another project that kind of matched my wool scarf.  This time I decided to just get the same yarn although the dye lot is slightly different.

The way the colorway comes out is always a pleasant surprise to me because gauge swatches are for conscientious people with too much time on their hands.  My philosophy is measure once, cut once, that's not even, cut again, damn it now it's ruined.

Let there be light

Back in 2010, I discovered embroidery.  You could make all kinds of pictures without being limited by squares!  It was so much faster!  Holy crap, I kind of suck at satin stitch!  I'm too stupid to keep track of what colors I used without an actual pattern!

My greatest talent in needlecrafts is starting a bunch of projects, getting distracted, and stuffing the unfinished projects into a bag that may or may not ever be opened again.

One day while dicking around on Amazon, I discovered embroidery paints.  Which are expensive, so this eventually lead me to think of Sharpies.  While there are actual fabric markers, they're complete bullshit.  The sadistic bastard who created fabric markers designed them so that they would never move smoothly on fabric.  I had no idea if Sharpies would be any better, but I did enjoy writing on my own clothes as a child.  Like most childhood prodigies, I was often bored in school and would do things that are either a sign of great intelligence or sheer stupidity.  I also once cut a hole in the knee of my pants because I wanted to see what would happen.  Experimental design like this is why I didn't end up in a STEM career.

I still need to clean up the rest of the shirt.  I cut the sleeves and the collar off, but I'm pretty happy with my tracing skills.  And my instincts were right: Banana Clip Yellow Sharpie worked better than Normal People Yellow on the blue fabric.  That's right; my instincts only work for arts and crafts.

I'll Punish You!

This is a special order from Kendra.  Or for Kendra?  The important thing is I figured out the hair and Kendra gave me money.

Kristen mocked me for cutting out little crescent moons and delicately placing them on the boots, but look at this attention to detail!  This is some fine god damned craftsmanship.

Depressing scavenger hunt

This year was a difficult holiday.  My grandfather was in the hospital on Christmas, and he was very weak after coming home.  My family was there for the weekend after Christmas, and my father spent most of the time helping my grandfather with his mobility issues and doing the things my grandfather used to do (making the coffee, getting the mail, etc).

I was staying in the house.  The house now smells weird.  Other family members have been helping clean the house and move things out of the house, but the house still smells weird and is full of junk.  I went over with Kristen to get ready for a Salvation Army run and see if there was anything I wanted.  I moped my way through the costume jewelry and took a tile I'd ordered during a trip to Solvang, CA.  Still in its plastic even though I was toodling around California a decade ago (and the bummer continues!).  In my grandparents' defense, the tile is of a family crest, and family crests for people whose surname used to change once a generation are probably bullshit.  Oh, and they still have a house full of stuff.

Kristen asked if the few pins, tile, and felt bat magnet were all I wanted.  And then she mocked me for rescuing one of the fish pans from the Salvation Army pile. We shall see who has the last laugh when I make some gross gelatin dessert with my fish pan and she can't have any!

For most of the clean up effort I've felt that I would never find anything in their house that would give me as much joy as the time I discovered my cousins' abandoned My Little Ponies.  This feeling did not take into account staying in the house alone with no TV and no internet.

I found some postcards my great-great aunt and great-grandparents had received just in a box on an old writing desk.  I don't know if they'd been there when I'd look through stuff as a kid or if I just didn't give a shit about postcards from 1923 when I was 10.  They've been rescued along with a picture of my grandmother and a button pin from General Motors' 1940 World's Fair exhibit.

By the time I got to the drawer of patterns, I was in full scavenge mode.  I ended up grabbing pattern books for things I can't even do.  I figured we could all have a good laugh at men's knits on the internet, and then I'd list them on eBay.

I've added the crotch glow, but I want you to know that at least half of these pictures feature a man casually posing with a pipe.

Unfortunately there are no instructions for how to find an elephant belt.

This would be a good investment for the modern hipster.  Seriously, hipsters, who would think of bringing this look back?  This would be the least mainstream thing you could possibly wear.

I like that nearly all of these models (including the dog) feel slightly embarrassed to be wearing these things.  I guess the dog coat isn't as bad as the little shoes.

According to this, knitting is pretty much like calling somebody up.  Or texting for you 21st century Almost Teens.  Except you guys can just buy cheap clothes for less than it would cost to buy enough yarn for some of these projects lol.