my freeform 365 project is NOT, i repeat, NOT a garment!
though if it were, philadelphia is the city where it would be LEAST out of place tomorrow...
happy new year!
here's hoping the leopard-spotted christmas octopus came dangling down your chimney this morning...
in the picture on the right, of our family xmas, there are five items knitted by me, four of them pre-blog, and three of them never even mentioned on this blog before... find them if you can! happy christmas!
some of you may have been reading long enough to remember my creche. but i have been wanting to take a picture of it now that i have a mantle. this is actually my third xmas with a mantle, so i dunno why this took me so long.
the giant crow is NOT technically a part of the scenario.
what i don't know could fill a book.
i needed to break a twenty to get on the bus today, and went into the vietnamese shopping mall on the corner to do it. i'm never sure what's going on in the little "gift shop" there, but i never feel very welcome. there are things in there i've been wanting to photograph for this blog; namely, some large, ornate paper dollhouses. but i'm afraid. the vietnamese shopkeepers don't seem happy to see me in the first place, so i doubt they're gonna like me with a camera.
today i bought these two lumpy packets marked "joss paper". i figured that what was on the outside was what was on the inside, too, just folded up. i picked a red one and a green one, thinking, well, here's some xmas wrapping paper - it's completely bizarre and out of this world, it's got nokia phones and ugly cars and houses on it, as well as dragons. also, each packet had a little foil wristwatch attached to it, but i didn't wonder why; why bother to wonder?
when i got home and inspected the packages, i noted that i had paid $1.25 for one of them but only .99 for the other. i wasn't sure why - until i "unfolded" them.
what i had been drawn to was not a folded sheet of paper, but an envelope - containing (in the more expensive of the two) a paper set of clothes, shoes and a hat. the cheaper packet had all these items but no hat. i said to ben, "are we supposed to burn someone in effigy?" and
ben
replied, "i'd be surprised if they made a kit for doing that."
we were flummoxed. but really, i was closer than i thought: i've been seeing the words "joss paper" all my life and never bothered to ask what it might be, or be for. i looked up "joss paper" on wikipedia and, well, now it all makes perfect sense - in fact, i saw the hell bank notes when i was there today, too. i saw a lot of packets of paper "toys" that all looked vaguely, well, aspirational - credit cards, jewelry - but all made of paper. are the "dollhouses" for burning, too?
i need to look more into all of this. the guys at the pho place are friendly - almost to a fault, as whenever i go there to work through lunch at least three waiters need to come over to ask me both what i'm reading and what i'm writing - but i'm not sure that anybody there can explain to me in english what all this is about. i'm not even sure what my questions are, which puts me at my usual disadvantage.
i'm still using the envelopes for holiday gift wrap. can i make some joss paper items for a dog who's dead? like, joss paper biscuits or squeak toys?
that's why i like it... 'cause it's kinda straddling its identity. some people think it's a precursor to the christmas season -- and it is -- but some people get it a little mixed up with halloween, too, as seen in this "marker painting" entitled christopher lee as dracula beating a turkey by punk rock and fine art philadelphia legend mikey wild. mikey whipped up this commission for me while i had a cup of coffee in the 9th street market wednesday morning on my way to pick up my turkey -- and yearly dose of baroque bullying -- from the equally legendary sonny d'angelo.
my favorite 24 hours of the whole year begin after the leftovers from thanksgiving are put away, through this evening, when we will be well into untangling lights and introducing hillel and ripley to their first christmas tree (we didn't put one up last year.) i've really got no significant knitting projects going at all -- in fact, i put the leafy man away for the year, since my meditation on the autumn leaves is effectively over until 2006, when i'll certainly take him out again. i really don't know what's next on the knitting or needlework front at all -- there are a few things sitting around that i can work on, but nothing i'm really obsessed with. which is good, since by the end of this long weekend, the press will be full of type and the ink will be out, and we will be testing papers for the knitting tarot book.
mel tormé is right at this moment singing about how he hates to say goodbye to november but how it also makes way for december. and i have to decide whether or not to eat pumpkin cheesecake for breakfast.
the pottery barn "kids" catalog came yesterday. holiday edition, natch. i haven't got the lifestyle-and-entertaining one yet, i'm surprised to say. but the "kids" edition was so weak i can't even whomp up the rage i usually feel.
this week's rage -- and it's that delicious type of rage, the kind that gives you that powerful thrill in knowing yes, thing are really this horrific, and i could justify far, far more outlandish behavior in response if i wished to go that way -- is directed that what i hear are the REMAKES -- THE REMAKES OF TWO OF THE BEST HORROR FILMS OF ALL TIME (and i make my debt to SMQ known here -- he introduced me to both of these), the wicker man and black christmas.
yes. the wicker man, the greatest scottish-pagan-hippie-horror movie ever -- starring edward woodward AND christopher lee, and featuring a CHILLING faux-donovan soundtrack: being remade by stupid americans. and black christmas, PERFECTION in sorority slasher films, starring keir dullea, margot kidder, andrea martin and olivia hussey -- and directed by the man who directed a christmas story with peter billingsley and darren mc gavin -- that black christmas -- being remade.
that's where my best rage is this week, and i'd have enough left over for pottery barn if they were worth it, but so far, they aren't. nothing's what it used to be, not even pottery barn. certainly not the october-november-december issues of martha stewart living which i still buy every year, and which, so far this year, two out of three, absolutely suck -- do you know what's in the november one? POM-POM CRAFTS.
what do you suppose you'll find if you measure the beta waves of someone who thinks the holidays are the time to break out the pom-poms? didn't martha stewart -- or at least the large staff of artists and designers and professionals whom she continually mistakes for her own brain -- used to be some arbiter of taste, or class, or something?
but again, i'm straying from my weak topic. pottery barn "kids".
once upon a time, well before my buying power years, pottery barn was a very, very uncool little catalog. it was like the lillian vernon catalog. which, i see, in placing that link, has had a little makeover of its own -- but, my point being, that the current incarnation of pottery barn is really a phoenix from the ashes, and i am sure i am not the only one who remembers it.
but -- as great horror movies degrade into anemic remakes... as martha stewart living, at its best full of flaws seems now to be far from "better than ever" as it at least used to provide some modicum of style until the freaking pom-pom turkeys showed up... so pottery barn begins, too, to degrade. pottery barn is... slipping, if the "kids" catalog is any indication. it's starting to look a lot like an OLD pottery barn catalog, decades old, pre-phoenix. junky novelty toys, rampant appliqué and terrycloth, and just about any item that can boast two dimensions is "personalized". names like Max and Natalie and Jack and Dylan and Logan run over wood, fabric, and metal, regardless if a surface design or pattern already exists there or not.
of all the things i never expected -- is this how it ends for pottery barn? not with a bang but with a whimper?
if i want to see something tasteless, i want to see something imaginative and tasteless. and if i want to see something tasteless, i'll watch a holiday-themed slasher film in which margot kidder has a crystal unicorn figurine shoved through her eye -- or whatever it is that happens in that movie -- i don't really remember -- but at least that means i have something to look forward to this holiday season.
yes it's a little too soon but they sent it in the mail and now i can't stop looking at it -- the wonderful wonderful oriental trading company halloween catalog!
it's just about the best catalog in the whole wide world! this halloween, we will not be wearing elaborate costumes to big events, (unless you count the jones new york suit i bought -- my first real suit -- for amy and scott's mischief night wedding!) but we do just want to be home handing out treats for neighborhood kids.
there are so many great new things in this year's catalog, i don't want to spoil them for anyone, and i just want more time to savor them. i have already got ministry's "every day is halloween" in my head all the time. of course, the catalog has all the great old favorites, too. (last year we gave out gummy brains, among other things.)
although i am sure i will be decorating with handknitted and felted halloween items both old and new, i may also be getting these drippy blood letters. look at the one that spells DANGER. i bet i could alter it to say AMBER very easily! then i can have it forever!
but what is the scariest thing in the new oriental trading company catalog... the very scariest, spookiest thing, that makes my heart turn to ice...
UNLICENSED RED-HATTER KNOCKOFF MERCHANDISE!!!!
this! will! never! do! everyone knows you have to get the licensed stuff. or all you are is... what's it say there? .... "red and wild". oh, god, i love that. that is so pathetic. "red and wild".
the only reasonable use for this stuff is during halloween... or at a pride parade... but only if everyone wearing it also has a big grey handlebar mustache and back hair.
in the beloved style of the early DIY movement, the gorgeous ladies of 1223 wharton sent valentines to those they adore.
cats can't send valentines. everybody knows that.
i'd have sent knitting tarot valentines myself, old school-style, but in the grand tradition, there were none left for me. you'd think that there'd be power in owning the means of production, wouldn't you. like, i could just go make some more. it doesn't seem to work like that though.
a little more on valentine's day, vaguely crochet- and spinning- related. for valentine's day this year, among other things, i got ben a dvd of the colorized carnival of souls, with audio commentary track by mike nelson. SIGNED by the man himself. i mean, talk about cool. i could do without the colorization, but we do love mike.
we did love mike. a little idol-toppling has occurred for me surrounding this whole adventure. i found the carnival of souls deal through mike's website, which also features some of his "random" writing. (those of you who know me are already cringing at the ooze of acid with which i pronounce the word so disingenuous and overused in the blog "writing" worlds, "random". well, mike didn't use it, but this is random writing if i ever saw it.)
the link may not stay active -- who knows how often mike nelson randomizes -- but if you scroll to the bottom of the current page, you'll find the "Stupid Hat Round-Up". o ho ho ho. so mike trolled the internet for pictures of hats to which he could attach his zany commentary.
he has an ana voog hat there.
big mistake, mike. once again -- for many, many years i have adored mike nelson. those straight-world good looks, the top notch MST3K writing and host presence. he had it all. but apparently i had it all, and was just applying it to my vision of mike. because what my mike nelson would have said about an ana voog hat is, "this hat is so fucking sexy i can hardly stand it."
mike didn't have the sense. i LOVE ana voog's hats. anybody worth their salt would know better.
i'm sure we'll enjoy the dvd, as we will continue to enjoy our MST3Kfests. i don't think i mentioned on this blog that, this past christmas, we had a "gift of the magi" moment surrounding MST3K. i went to one of those fan sites where they make bootleg episode tapes for you for a little money, and got ben a bunch for a gift. i was SO excited, i could not wait to give them to him (and watch them), so i suggested that we each give each other ONE gift, early, on xmas eve. so excited was i about giving ben his tapes, that i did not notice the telltale size and shape of the gift from ben that i myself was opening, which was in fact... a big stack of bootlegged MST3K episodes.
out of sixteen episodes total, we only doubled up on two.
which brings us back to valentine's day, by way of true love.
(and my sister's boyfriend got her a llama -- whose care is being paid for in megan's name for the next year at the lehigh valley zoo.)
i have a scrapbook in which i keep all the handmade, and other favorite, christmas cards i receive each year.
this is an intaglio print made by my ex-husband tim. he's always been good with this kind of carving, and is also excellent at jack o'lanterns.
although not handmade, i had never seen this roy lichtenstein holiday card before. it was sent by the much-mentioned lisa (known around here as "bread lisa", as opposed to "yarn lisa" and "dog lisa").
of course, of course, we would all rather have a buy nothing christmas. but really -- if you buy nothing, then you do not get to sample and appreciate the talents of many others! nobody said you had to buy jean naté gift sets or anything -- just buy smart, and buying is okay!
here are some things i bought for my
rosie's yarn cellar
friends, who are always there for me -- to machine stitch my steeks, to mend the hole i cut into the back of my garment while cutting open my front steek, to let me extort marshmellows from their children... and these are just recent examples. i bought them mini-handcare kits from handwork products, which is run by elaine benfatto, who i think is wonderful.
as someone who has been known throughout life as Not Making The Most Of Her Looks, my ablutions tend to be minimal. and, appearance aside, i don't take care of my hands. i chew away at anything that snags on the yarn -- sometimes i even "file" rough skin or nail with my teeth.
elaine's products have fresh, clean smells -- personally i am reminded of the combined scents of hot mint tea and hot rosewater fingerbowls at a moroccan restaurant -- and they are not at all greasy or heavy. furthermore, they made my hands feel better! and the delivery systems by which the serum and cuticle cream are dispensed -- too cool. DO try them. (the cool knitting postcard is courtesy of the very cool stella marrs).
are you buying for a little person? a little person for whom maybe you did not have time to knit something? these little books are perfect for textile fans who want to teach babies how to eat internationally.
each of the pictures in the book is a photograph of a collage of sewing, beads, xeroxography -- illustrating jewish deli foods, dim sum, and sushi for the tippy-cup set!
ben
and i fell in love with them and bought them for us.
the books are by amy wilson sanger. i am not an amazon.com "affilliate" so i see no need to make a link -- you'll find them if you want them.
and... last but not least... now that the mystery recipients have all safely received theirs... it's always okay to shop for grumpy santa hat-wearing sheep toys that defecate root beer flavored jellybeans!
it's more than okay to buy gifts for the holidays. because some people (like elaine) are better at making certain things than you are -- and, as you would wish them to for you, you feel they deserve to be paid. that's a tribute to their talent! what is money, anyway, but the international language of appreciation? it can be. it should be.
and, in other instances, you just need to buy a bunch of something, without ever wanting to be responsible for owning it, much less having created it. a jellybean defecating sheep fits this category better than anything, or anyone, i know.
i came up with two.
this is the one i call the Dame Edna. its tail is made from an acid green-dyed bucktail and pearl krystal flash -- common fly-tying materials. the body is a drop-spindle combo of silk waste dyed with cochineal, and some bamboo/silk blend that was actually put in an exhausted indigo bath -- that only served to eliminate it's natural yellowness and give it this silvery blue "invisible" color.
and this is the Pfefferneussen. this is my favorite, because of its, as
ben
says, "spindliness". it's sorty spidery (not that that wins any points with ben.) the tail of this fly is made from pearl krystal flash strung with silver and gold star sequins, and with natural silk. the body is made from hackle flash in the color "root beer".
on giant size 1 hooks, they make lovely tree ornaments.
some friends are receiving these holiday flies as gifts. i am presenting them along with this ornament, which looks for all the world like a jean cocteau drawing.
my own flies may live year round now on my stick cactus in my front window. i think a little wear and tear and sun bleaching only really enhances the look of a fly.
we wish we could have sent a card to everyone, but, with letterpress, once they're gone, they're gone -- and we never seem able to make quite enough of anything.
but here is how we'll share with you all. happy holidays to everyone, from all of us!
i have to say that it surprises me that, with 300+ hits a day, NOBODY e-mailed to ask, "what's all this chinesey and mexican-looking stuff for? what are you up to?" you people e-mail about OTHER stuff... why did no one bite? i wasn't even trying to keep the secret all that hard.
to costume
ben
as "the day of the dead" was the easier of the two, since figures -- human figures, fleshless they may be -- are associated with the holiday.
items you have seen before include the poncho, the papel picado-style drapery with large marigolds (traditional flower of the day of the dead), "sugar" skulls, and guillermo.
ben
was definitely a magnet for drunk people, and people definitely understood what he was.
i really liked his feet.
my costume was more of an abstract, and without
ben
as the "hint", i don't think anyone would have got it. it was also a lot harder to photograph, since so much of it was in the details. items you have seen before include the sparkly mandarin jacket (also known as the money pit, even in its swatching stages), the "red dragon" mah-jongg slippers, the thigh-high fishnets, and the "lucky bamboo" chinese charm hat. extra acoutrements include a mask that i bought at cirque du soliel last summer, and chinatown trinkets, some knotted onto a sterling charm bracelet from tiffany's (the first thing anybody ever gets from tiffany's -- the charm bracelet with the thing on it that looks like a heartworm tag) which i found in a plastic bag filled with other costume jewelry and remnants of some trail mix that must have been six years old. throw on some "flower drum song" trinkets from oriental trading company (after purchasing your gummy brains and gummy mummies, of course) and you're good to go.
whew. now, all being said and done, i can say: i like making stuff a lot more than i like going to "parties" and having "fun". and really, halloween is best done by little kids like the ones we saw here in the hours before getting our cab. i'd rather walk on the streets with kids and their treat bags than dress up again, i think. and the next time i make a costume, i think it'll be for somebody little.
a few more photos of the evening, and photos of friends, are available on the album page.
we printed these on ludovine -- halloween/change of address flyers. because i was loathe to fold them, we mailed very few out. mostly we put them in mailboxes of our old block-mates, and handed them out to friends and office people.
there's a bit of an interesting story behind this "aubrey beardsley" image.
i found the image on a digital collection of "scary" things. the beardsley was the only one i REALLY wanted -- beardsley and letterpress were something i wanted to combine, and the digital collection was "copyright free". so i bought it, for sixty dollars or so. i still held my breath when i sent the image to the photoengravers, because i was worried they'd red-tape me over the copyright, but they didn't.
a few weeks ago, at a flea market in a nearby park, i found a nice big hardback beardsley book for five bucks, so i bought it. thumbing through it in the car, i noticed a whole section of consecutive drawings that i didn't like at all, and had never seen before. it was as though beardsley had drawn them with his left hand, or while drunk, or something -- they just didn't have the magic.
i went to the front of the book to see if there was any special chapter heading for this section. there was: it was a chapter entirely devoted to beardsley forgeries! i was rather proud that my untrained eye had in fact sniffed out (to mix sensory organ metaphors) these forgeries, and was about to express my self-pride to ben, when i flipped back to the section in question...
...and saw the image that i had just paid sixty dollars to own, and fifty dollars to have made into a letterpress engraving.
so.
it's still cool.
this was printed with the image first, then it dried, then we had to lay the words out so that they worked their way around the image itself. that was fun. as they say, a hard thing in letterpress is inking large expanses of space, and there are plenty of those here. we see why it's hard.
unlike last year, this year we need "iced" sugar skulls -- like the kind they use in mexico's dia de los muertos celebrations.
these skulls didn't need big open mouths, so i didn't give them any. but for some reason, i left them open at the bottom. i didn't even notice until
ben
pointed it out.
ben didn't understand why we needed puffy paint, or what i was doing. i found a picture with which to explain.
a little crude, perhaps, but i am not a confectioner.
does anyone care to hazard a guess at what is going on here? clues abound.
oh, the issues. i had intended, first and foremost, to make gyotaku -- japanese fish prints. i did this a long time ago, and had a lot more success with it then. don't know where i went wrong this time -- wrong paper, wrong ink, wrong fish -- but it was just icky and strange. none of the prints really took, there was a problem with bleeding gills, and i ended up laying waste to numerous postcards, envelopes, and tiny little plain-white jigsaw puzzle-cards. phooey.
trying to stay away from EITHER a) hearts or b) red and pink, and having exhausted my fish and mercilessly screwed with their reincarnation process, i ended up doing a traditional hearty-thing in browns and greens and silver ink. for the record, those little jigsaw puzzles -- good in theory, hard to use. two out of four went into the trash, and not just because of the fish. i think, unless you really know what you're doing and can anticipate the problems, they are a little unpredictable.
i have always liked this holiday, whether single or coupled. i wish more people made valentines. i wish grown-ups gave them out at work, just like we did when we were kids. all homemade. i would save them all.
okay, i have been doing some previously unaforementioned holiday knitting, out of ben's range of vision. but i had nothing to knit while in his presence, so had to come up with a "decoy" project. it was this tiny pair of socks, which i have made the "gift tag" on my dad's rather lumpy, Lion In Winter-looking package. (remember all the lumpy gifts in that movie?)
i haven't forgotten that this, 2003, was to be the Year of Selfish Knitting. obviously, i didn't observe it as strictly as i could have. and even down to the wire, i was starting new holiday projects, however small. schmucki's husband refers to this, she tells me, as "mission creep". good one!
i didn't grow up in a religious family. we had the soundtracks to both jesus christ superstar and godspell, but that is where i got most if not all of my information about christianity. now, my dad is quite the athiest, and my mother, in recent years, has introduced
ben
to her "grandmother" at the dinner table, while pointing emphatically to a gravy boat.
whether or not there is a god, or souls may be transfered to the gravy boats of their one-time owners, is a different knitting project entirely. but not to get off topic. we didn't have a lot of religion in my house, but at christmastime, we had this:
i don't know where it came from or that it was significant to anybody except myself. i really loved it. i loved that little baby. in that lizard-mind that you have when you're a kid, where everything you admire must be YOURS, i used to surreptitiously (i thought) try to pry this baby out of the manger with my finger. i wanted to hold him. my mom would always catch me and tell me to stop.
i put this little manger out at christmastime now, but i have always wanted a nativity set of my own. i am always fascinated by how different they can be, and how they reflect the tastes of their owners.
it's important for me to say first -- and get the jump on any well-meaning whistleblowers -- that this was hardly an original project. in fact i copied it out of something i saw for sale in a catalog last year.
that crèche was wooden, not knitted, but numerous elements have carried over to mine: the genderless, faceless nature of the figures; the traditional blue "garb" of the virgin mother; the lack of crowns or other trappings of status on the wise men; the ambivalent classification of the "animals". i didn't want an angel in my nativity, so i don't have one -- now it's complete in its secular humanism.
and i have only one animal. it's a very bottom-heavy sort of loch-ness-llama.
i also made three wise men, and they are bearing gifts.
ben and i were a little mystified to see how the joseph and mary figures appear to be leaning into one another lovingly, and in fact looking down at where the baby will be. totally unplanned, but rather uncanny.
some people put their baby jesus out when they put their whole set out. some wait until christmas morning. i like waiting until christmas morning. that's what my dad (the athiest) does with his (very nice carved wooden) nativity set -- he always waits. so we're going to wait too.
check back on christmas day!
the holiday season is upon us. ben's learning the words to "let it snow" and studying his dean martin christmas songs in the car.
how can one remember their helpful and necessary yarn store staff at this time of year? those people probably don't need me to knit anything for them. and i don't think they need any yarn.
so for the guys and gals at rosie's yarn cellar , ben and i made little shimmery bags of all natural moth repellent, which is from a special mix the source of which i will never ever reveal. good for stash drawer, or hat-and-glove shelf of the closet!
well, "good" in the sense of "for people who don't want bats in their house." because bats get rid of moths too. they're just little christmas elves with fangs and wings, you know.
remember your yarn store people this holiday season!
here are the skulls i made for my sister megan, in her apartment. nestled amongst the ivy leaves, guarding over the pepperidge farm bagels. she liked 'em.
my sister lives in yardley, pa. yardley, pa. isn't the place to live if you wanna wave your freak flag all that often. still, i dare anyone anywhere to say, "this is no place to hang a small woolen re-creation of a human skull."
and don't forget -- as always -- the Damned support frank di cicco for city council, first district.
ben had to do the window display because i am on crutches, having fallen on the street on monday. (no i was NOT looking at my drop spindle, and ignoring the craterous streets. NO i was NOT.)
it was fun this morning to watch, from the office window, grade school kids stopping to check out the skulls. "they made them," a boy with long cornrows said solemnly.
on the back of this picture, in my mom's writing, it says "halloween 1974". that means i had just begun kindergarten, and would turn five the following february.
my previously featured scarecrow costume must have been from '73. i have that photo, but not the costume itself. my first halloween must have been '72, at age two and a half, when i was a witch. i have the witch costume, but no pictures of me in it.
the skeleton costume of '74 is the only case in which i have both the costume and a photo of me in it. i would like to get the two framed together, but i think the costumes i have might get another wearer before they go into frames.
during the christmastime after i wore this costume, i requested a "book about skeletons" from santa claus. tireless, i tell you. i'm trying to remember what i was picturing in my mind when asking for this. probably just pages and pages of cavorting skeletons. what i got was a book called "the human body" which had chapters not only on skeletal structures but muscles, digestion, and fetal development (which quickly superceded my fascination with skeletons.) it proved very satisfying.
note in the photo, i have a homemade costume, but a store-bought mask. this was a concession that had to be made. i was the only kid in the neighbhorhood getting these fabulous handmade costumes, but at the same time, i felt left out of the whole buying-masks-at-woolworth's process. my mom worked the costumes out so that i could always go get a store-bought mask to augment them. and she made whatever i asked her to. i never had to be a ladybug or some crap. the bones of this costume are drawn in marker on interfacing, then cut out and stitched onto the black one-piece.
29 years later, it must be clear, that my interest in skeletons is not to be taken lightly.
i've been giving my sister skull-related birthday gifts for the past few years. mexican sugar skull-making kits, stuff like that. her birthday is near halloween, and that's why i do it. she's never complained, and anyway she's got a boyfriend who can get her stuff she actually wants. i want to give skulls.
these skulls are felted. it took a little trial-and-error to rework the unfelted, crocheted skulls into something that would shape correctly; felting takes more out of the horizontal than it does the vertical. so, many afternoons i found myself slaving over hot skulls in the kitchen sink...
soaping and rinsing and agitating...
until i had the shape and size i wanted. as to size, my rule-of-skull was: when it was wet, i had to be able to stuff ONE plastic shopping bag inside of it snugly. more than one, and it was still too big.
stuffing them while they were wet, and doing a little facial reconstruction here and there with rubberbands and whatnot, made for various expressions of agony.
a few written instructions, and they're off in the mail!
if anyone ever asks me "how many skulls can a healthy woman felt in one afternoon, comfortably?" the answer will not be "four". i felt like i had been in a boxing ring.
on an excellent suggestion from my father,
ben
did a little research and bought some strings of light-emitting diodes for the project. they are "cool" lights, and safer to use -- plus, they have a sickly color to them. spooky upon spooky.
autumn doesn't begin for a week yet, but i will be ready. half of me rushes the season, half of me waits until it is really, officially, in the air.
i don't think this costume is around anymore, but i have this one picture of it. it is perhaps from my second halloween (i think i only began trick-or-treating when i was three, and this looks like me at four.) my expression in this picture, not to mention the way i am holding my arms, serves as a reminder of what it felt like to wear this -- it was itchy. it was burlap. it was also a damn sight better than just having a sheet over you, or a flammable costume from woolworth's, and i knew it. my mom made it.
ahem. boo.
here is a skull for my longtime friend kevin. if you go to his site, you'll see why i think he may enjoy this skull, and why it will hopefully find a good home with him!
i swore i was going to wait until closer to halloween to give it to him, but i don't think i can. skulls, felted and unfelted, are gaining the majority in our household.
getting ready for fall with... little human skulls.
expect to see them in my windows (ben is figuring out a safe way to place them over a string of white holiday lights) in both regular spooky plain-bones variety, and enlightened, festive, decorated, day-of-the-dead variety.
i went ever so SLIGHTLY outside the lines for valentine's day, from my "only knit for us and the house" rule of 2003. if that's wrong, i don't wanna be right. i knitted a little swatch valentine for both
ben
and my dad. and had, for that matter, started one for tim, but didn't like how it was coming along, and decided to make a speshuler valentine instead using kikkoman. (my favorite thing about this picture is the little ink stamp of the name LEVIN that is on our kitchen table.)
my dad's house is a place full of... artifacts. it's really a lovely house, but peeling paint just comes with big old houses sometimes. here are the stockings that my mom made megan and i as kids, hanging by the wood burning stove.
aaaah, the holiday payoff of seeing people happy in their gifts. tim loved his turkish socks inspired by the munakata shiko woodblock exhibit. here he is standing on the edge of the couch. also in the photo: the tim and amber christmas stockings. should i make us new ones that say "PLAINTIFF" and "DEFENDANT"? i understand that not too many divorcing couples FILL each others stockings these days. tim and i do, and i know we are truly lucky.
last year while we were walking through the park,
ben
said to me: "will you knit me a hanukkah stocking someday?" "no," i answered. "i just knit you a goddamned sweater. who do you think you are, asking me to knit you stuff." "i'm sorry," said ben. of course the punchline is, i had just FINISHED his hanukkah stocking that very week, knit entirely in secret. here is the image on the front of it. boy is it big.
here is a table runner and set of cloth napkins i have had for some time. made either by my mother or my father's sister, leah, the little handsewn hems on each item are amazing to me. so perfect. i love novelty fabrics, and particularly novelty fabrics of the past. sometimes as kids my cousins and i had shirts, pants, even dresses made of the stuff, in halloween-printed cottons.