Thursday, December 15, 2011

Eskimo Amigurumi

by Kelly

Christmas is funny. So many people stress the importance of 'decommercializing'  the holiday, yet we are continually bombarded by news stories about the importance of stimulating the economy, especially at this 'critical' time of the year.  I can hardly sleep at night for the terrible images in my mind of raggedly clad CEO's of major retail conglomerates selling matches on street corners, trying to raise the funds necessary to stay open for another financial quarter.

Well, my mom doesn't feel that commercializing Christmas is a bad thing. She has always been a big believer in cash for Christmas. To her mind, it's the one present that never disappoints.

Also, she does what I think of as a 'reverse guilt trip', by telling my husband and I that she doesn't need anything for Christmas because we do so much for her throughout the year. She likes 'simple gifts'  because she 'hates to be a bother'.

And so my mom is hard to shop for, because no matter what I buy for her, I am always plagued by doubt. I have this nagging feeling that a shoebox stuffed with the green stuff would have made her happier, especially if the only 'trouble' that I took with her gift was to take care that the numbers on the bills were non-sequential. Not that I've ever felt that my mother was just gathering resources so that she could flee the country. Well, almost never.

So when a  little birdie told me that my Mom wanted a couple of my amigurumi figures for Christmas, I was relieved. So I dug out one of my poor, unwanted bears, happy to be giving the little guy a better home than a plastic bag in my closet. I also made her this little Eskimo.


Now, I know that some might think that this Eskimo isn't especially politically correct, but I swear I was only trying to make him look like he's squinting into the blinding sunlight reflecting off a glacier. And this was my first amigurumi that I made from my own pattern, so I think I deserve credit that it's not a shapeless lump of fun fur.

Anyway, I have a vague childhood memory of owning a  Weeble that looked like an Eskimo that had this same expression on it's face, although a prolonged Internet search failed to turn anything up.

Does anyone else remember Weebles? And after viewing the commercial in the link above, I'd like to say that I had no idea there was so much Weeble swag available. I counted myself lucky to have a slightly cracked Weeble treehouse. Of course, having seen what that thing goes for on Amazon.com , I'd still count myself lucky to have one.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Some Christmas Shipping

by Kelly


I did a little shipping today:




In the next picture you can see my lovely assistant helping to package the goods.


I visited the SmoothFox  site recently and read the square totals that she has listed on the sidebar.  I couldn't believe it when I read that Christine Clyburn from Florida submitted enough squares to earn 500 points for the month of November. And she's competing as an individual. Christine, I bow down to you. Seriously.

And by the way, sorry for the darkness of the pictures, but that's how things are in Illinois in the winter, even with all the lights on. Gray. Gloomy. Depressing. Unlike sunny Florida.  Sigh.

Monday, December 12, 2011

MST3K Scarf for Christmas

by Kelly


Shhh...don't tell anyone, but I made this scarf for a friend for Christmas. I feel perfectly safe posting this before The Big Day, since the recipient doesn't read this blog, or in fact any crafting blog.

I found the free pattern chart on Ravelry, courtesy of sewgeeky.  Thank you, sewgeeky, whoever you are!  This chart was great - just look how perfect those figures are!


Here's another picture showing the shameful and ugly stranded back. I could have made this as an intarsia project, but it actually looked better less awful with stranded knitting on the back. Tip for others who want to do this - knit it in the round so that you have a tube scarf, and no one will ever see the ugly stranding process that goes on behind the scenes.


For those of you who don't know what MST3K is, check this link.
For those of you who now need an MST3K fix, see RiffTrax or Cinematic Titanic.


For those of you who don't care, happy holidays anyway!




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