That's it all rolled up. I think that's going to be how I will wrap it - it's always a bit of a challenge with knitted gifts to wrap them in a way that doesn't give away what they are too much.
I like how it turned out. I think my mom will like it, too. One of the nice things about the Lion Brand "Amazing" yarn is that in addition to being softer and more reasonably priced than the comparable Noro yarns, it also doesn't have the strange discordant color that most Noro yarns have in the mix.
Here it is, folded in half and stretched out to show more of the colors:
It took a long time to make but it feels like it was worth it, now.
I also finished the little hat from the Jane Brocket book. I am not as pleased with this. It came out bigger and floppier than I anticipated:
I guess it looks better in the photos. It came out kind of like those Rasta hats that the guys use to tuck their dreadlocks in. If it were really too large, and if it weren't fuzzy yarn, I'd consider un-knitting it and redoing it on smaller needles, but meh, I'm not displeased with it enough to do that.
Gah, awful pictures of me today. I'm a little broken out and in this shot my nose looks huge to me. We're having a run of cold-then-hot weather and I have had a terrible sinus headache on and off this afternoon (called and begged off of Youth Group - at any rate, the one kid who's likely to be there is in the Christmas play and will be with the group rehearsing, so it's unlikely I'd have a Youth Group tonight anyway). I'm running a slight fever but I can never tell if that's other stuff going on (though I have felt chilled all day) or if I'm actually getting a cold. But I don't like the changeable weather because you don't know how to dress appropriately for it, and also, it seems people are a lot more likely to get sick in it.
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I've been watching cartoons some this weekend (in between doing the other things - writing an exam, sorting two soils samples, and reading the last three sections I must prepare for Principles I). They've started up the Christmas-toy ads, it looks like.
And this is where I think about my own childhood, in the 1970s, during the "baby bust." And how there are SO MANY cool toys now that I would have loved as a child but which were not invented yet. (That said: we had good old Lego bricks, which were a favorite thing, and which were one thing that could keep my brother and me happily playing alongside each other, and even sometimes creating fantasy worlds together as we played. And we had Dakin stuffed animals, which I loved dearly and sometimes could even find ones I could afford on my tiny allowance). (I had a Barbie doll, but I didn't quite know what to do with her. She was one of the "Malibu" line, and came dressed in a swimsuit, which seemed rather impractical to me, as I really wanted toys I could carry along with me when I climbed trees or made blanket-forts, and it seemed to me Barbie wouldn't really be up for that).
But of course, as an adult, if you can't actually play with and enter fully into the imaginative world of toys the way you would have as a child, you still have a bigger allowance than you did as a child, so you can buy toys if they please you:
The last time I was at Target I gave in and bought a set of Hello Kitty "Squinkies" (these are an odd rubbery substance, some kind of polymer). They are very tiny and very cute. I held off on opening the package, telling myself I really SHOULD leave it unopened and drop it in the Toys for Tots bin when those come out...but I decided to open it up and make Hello Kitty and company mascots for my home computer. That's just a few of the set there - apparently it's the Kitty family (dad, mom, brother (I assume so - he has overalls and what looks like a "buzz" haircut) and Kitty herself). And next to Dad is a little sheep in a pink dress. They are extremely tiny and extremely cute and the kind of thing I would have ADORED when I was a child. And probably have made houses for out of old shoeboxes and such.
(I did also buy another set of "squinkies" as a gift for the local toy drive, and will go toy shopping again for a Toys for Tots gift later on; I have kind of made it a tradition to buy some toy that I think either my brother or I would have enjoyed when we were kids and give it to Toys for Tots.)
And yes, I have to confess: I'm almost done crocheting another Pony. This one this time is a grey Pegasus with yellow hair, who goes (alternatively, depending on the show vs. fanfics) by the name of Ditzy Doo, or Derpy, or Bright Eyes.
It's actually kind of interesting - does it sound too precious to say, "sociologically"? - to see how different fans relate to this pony that has no real backstory in the show, who was really just a one-off joke by an animator (giving a background pony "derpy" eyes - making her look sort of wall-eyed). Some fans see her as "challenged" in some way (There's actually a very, very sad fanfiction called "Bubbles" that addresses this*). Others seem to treat her like she's a little bit crazy. Still others - and I think this is the camp I fall into - see her as basically "OK," or at least not messed-up in a clinical sense, but maybe a little scatterbrained and absent-minded and clumsy. (We can all be a little "derpy" at times). It's funny, there does seem to be much fan love for her - and the writers of the show have put her in the background of a number of episodes and even apparently named her Ditzy Doo.
(*That was the first fanfic I ever read. Not the first PONY fanfic, the first-ever fanfic. I tend to shy away from such stuff because there seems to be a need on the part of many of the fan-writers to, as they apparently say in the community, "'ship" different characters - that is, engage them in a romantic relationship. (Yes, even the Ponies. They may say "Rule 34" has no exceptions, but a lot of times I wish it did, and I certainly like to PRETEND it does). But Bubbles contains none of that Rule 34 nonsense, but it IS very, very sad - suffice it to say Derpy is an "unwanted foal" because of her challenges and...well, it's very sad. And this is where I'm perhaps a bit too in touch with my inner seven year old: I would have totally wanted a toy of Derpy - a "real" Derpy I could hold in my hand - so I could imagine protecting her and telling her it was all going to be OK. I remember feeling "protective" towards characters that I felt were mistreated in some way. And I very, very much liked having actual, "in the flesh" (or rather, "in the felt" or "In the fake fur" or "in the yarn" versions of my favorite characters. ) So anyway: I'm close to done with it. This one is going faster and I'm more confident because I figured out things like how to make the hair work on Fluttershy. But this is going to be the last pony I do. Because any more, and that way lies madness.).
1 comment:
Nice scarf!
That was such a sad, touching story about Ditzy Doo.
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