Attempt #2 at the Owl Hat

I finished the owl hat and feel pretty satisfied with it. This time around, I used a thinner yarn and smaller hook. It came out to about the right size, I believe. The eyes and nose were easier the second time (well, fifth time for the nose) around. The pom-pom was added at the customer's request and was a bit of a pain. I'm still not quite sure how to make them properly. My coffee table was covered with bits of fluffy yarn by the time I finished.

Finally! A Piece of Clothing!

I've finished the shrug finally! Usually, I just don't have the patience to tackle pieces of clothing. I pulled the pattern from The Happy Hooker and I just love it. It's very simple and quick. However, I used too small of a hook and the shrug doesn't actually fit me now. It's more like a small or small-ish medium. I need to find a model to get better pictures of it.

Two New Hats

A baby hat (that has been stretched over the small mannequin head):


An adult-sized hat. I love this one so much, I might keep it.

Attempt #1 at the Owl Hat

I just finished the owl hat. I used a fluffy, bulky yarn that so resembled owl feathers (or rather, what I imagine owl feathers to feel/look like) that I had to use it.

Unfortunately, it made the hat adult-sized.

For the eyes, I used regular acrylic yarn, standard weight. Those were simple enough and I think I will keep the pattern the same for Attempt #2. The beak was a complete pain. I don't know what I was thinking (and thank god I didn't take pictures) but I my beaks kept resembling human noses. Now, in my defense, I've never actually seen an owl up close. Okay, that's a weak defense considering the internet has a bajillion images of owls to choose from. I was just lazy and thought I knew what to do. Nuh-uh. Luckily, Josh had me flip the nose upside down and instantly, I was shown the light. It was a weak light, but a light, nonetheless. I decided to give it a hooked appearance by only sewing the top portion. The face, overall, is acceptable.

Moving on, I defined the face from the head by just sewing a soft, wispy, gray thread in a half-circle around the eyes and beak. Unfortunately, I didn't really calculate stitches or anything, and the circle ended up being off-centered. Count stitches before sewing. Duly noted. Finally, I wove the same gray thread into the braids to give it some consistency. While I haven't added it the "feathers" to this hat, the second hat will consist of gray Vs woven throughout the hat. Hopefully this will resemble feathers.

Notes from the Future: Strangely enough, about a month later, I went to the spa in the mountains. I had brought this hat along to show my friends, who thought it was hilarious. While out one night, we ran into a group of miners who worked in the area. After many drinks, photos, and laughs, they came back to our hotel room with us. (Purely innocent, natch.)

One miner tried the hat on, to the amusement of his buddies. One guy then asked if he could buy the hat. Which he did. For $25.00. He said he would bring it down into the mines with him the next day.

Further Notes from the Future: Even more strangely, about three months later, a friend and I went back to the same spa, to the same bar, and met more miners. After many drinks, photos, and laughs, we mentioned in passing about the hat. The (hot) miner replied, "The owl hat?! You made the owl hat?! We all wore that around the mines for weeks!"

Underground, people. My pieces have made it all around the world and finally, underground.

(If you want to see how attempt #2 turned out, click here.)

Basura.

I work as a part-time janitor at a waste-water treatment facility.

It is glamorous work, to say the least.

Since I work late at night, I rarely meet the people whose offices I clean.

Having never met me, they have no idea I am the whitest of white chicks.

Whenever there is a large pile of boxes or some other type of trash

which will not fit in the can, they leave me a note:

BASURA

Is it racist or judgmental of them to assume a cleaning person must be Hispanic

and/or speak Spanish exclusively?

The Raccoon Whisperer

While mopping the office on Sunday, Josh came in and told me there was a raccoon in the dumpster outside. He had thrown the garbage in, then noticed it sitting at the bottom of the empty dumpster. The lid had been down and the poor thing had been trapped in there.

Josh freaked out and closed the lid again. I went out there (the brave soul that I am), swung open the lid all the way, and ran squealing, closing the gate behind me. We watched the raccoon jump out, stare at us for a bit, then run away into the field.

It was heart-warming for sure. I had never seen a raccoon that close up before. They're very cute animals.

Hurricane Flossie.

Does this hurricane live on a plantation,

sip iced tea on the porch,

while discussing the scandalous antics of the neighbors with Bitsy and Muffy?

A New Project

A friend asked me to make an owl hat for a baby gift. Since I can't find a pattern for this, I'm going to be making it up as I go along. This is the awesome picture she gave me of her vision:

For the hat, I'm using the same pattern I used for earlier earflap/braid hats. Once the hat itself is done, I will be adding gray and black v-shaped accents to give it a feathery look. For the face, I'm making the eyes and nose separately and will just sew them on. Finally, I think I will add some kind of gray line to separate the face from the head/body.

As of right now, it's looking mighty scary. The eyes still have strings hanging from them that resembles vessells and veins. The nose's dangling strings make it look like a turkey. We'll see how this all comes together.

The JC Hat

The hat is a basic mesh pattern, all double-crochets except at the top.



For the flower, I couldn't find a pattern I liked. I played around with different techniques and stitches, coming up with this:



It's a simple and quick design and worked well with the hat (which is also fairly simple):


Since the pattern is an original creation, I'll be posting a listing for the pattern on my Etsy site soon.

Which came first?

Dinosaurs were around before people.

God is a person.

So the dinosaurs are older than god.

This is what The Dude (at six years old) deduced tonight.

Tape.

The office manager was standing at my desk, talking with a few superintendents.

I was next to her, taping up boxes to be shipped. The tape dispenser made a lot of noise with each pull.

After two minutes of trying to shout over me, she said, "Damn! Could you be any louder?!"

I replied, "I'm sorry...shall I go work at your desk instead?"

Boastful Post-ful.

A coworker just told me I have the best hair, like, ever.

It totally made my day.

Three cheers for low-maintenance!

I am so going to miss The Dude being six years old.

There won't be many more years of him squeezing and kissing me

because I brought him home a big piece of styrofoam to play with.