I finished the "Cute Overload in Amigurumi Form!" project, but when I did last night, it was kind of late to take pictures. Pictures will come this afternoon.

I am coming to the conclusion that I prefer knitting toys to crocheting them. Knitted toys, when finished, are 'squishier,' which is a good thing in my book. (I sort-of collect teddy bears and was frankly kind of disappointed when I finally got a Steiff bear - supposedly the Rolls-Royce of teddy bears - they are stuffed very hard and stiff, and are not "cuddly" in the way that, say, Gund bears are. I suppose that's the traditional style but as I played with Gund and Dakin animals as a child, what I expect is something softer.)

Also knitting is less hard on my hands than the tight-tight crochet amigurumi require. Then again...amigurumi can be sculptural in a way that's hard to do with knitting.

I do still want to make the Bright Spark. And the couple of Mochimochi-made "friends" (a capacitor and a resistor) to go along with it. And I've got some of the Mochimochiland patterns I ordered over the past months. And some of the incredible, detailed Hansigurumi patterns. (I really do need to make myself the Dumbo Octopus one of these days. Oh, and the Loch Ness Monster. I really love the Loch Ness Monster, I was "stalking" Etsy before it came out, waiting for it to be available for sale).

I like making toys; part of it is that they're a fast project where you have the fun of completing something fairly quickly. But also part of it is that they're TOYS. I admit it - I still like soft toys. I still like stuffed animals. I doubt that's something I will ever give up, even though I openly acknowledge it's kind of weird. (And yes, sometimes after a tough day I will secretly pick one up and give it a hug.)

I think also that part of it is you don't have to be concerned with fit or size or how the color looks on you - with making toys, really, the only concern is that the gauge is tight enough that the stuffing doesn't leak through.

(I think one of my "yarn to look out for" on my Longview trip next week will be the colors needed for Resisty or for some of the other toy patterns I have queued up).

Another nice thing about making toys is that they take so little yarn...you can buy a nice wool yarn for a knit toy that you'd never buy 20 skeins of for a sweater...but 2 for a teddy bear or kitty is affordable. Or you can pick weird colors. Or fibers you'd normally never wear or work with. Or the strange glittery hairy yarns that would look a right mess as a sweater look OK as a lion's mane or something.

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I'm wearing a nearly 20 year old dress today. It's what I've come to think of as "the funeral dress." It's somber enough without looking like costume mourning (I do own a couple of black dresses but no one, not even family, wears black to funerals any more). It's a navy blue faux silk with small white random polka dots. It's a simple style - sort of a shirtwaist with long medium-full sleeves. It doesn't look like 1989 to me...that's always one of my concerns about being super-frugal, clothes-wise - I don't want to buy stuff that's going to look dated in a few years.

The dress was bought for my maternal grandmother's funeral. (Well, actually, I think I wore this to "Family Night" (or The Viewing as they call it up North) and wore another dress - which I also still have - to the actual funeral).

Yes, it still fits. I think I can be a bit proud of that. I can't fasten the belt QUITE as tightly as I once did (it's on the outermost hole and as I remember when I first bought it, I had to cinch it in to hole 2 or 3)

Of course, my mother can still wear her wedding dress - from 49 years ago. So she wins.