Even More Tapestry Pieces!

Okay, clearly I love Tapestry Crochet. Or, more clearly, I love the sorta kinda tapestry crochet thingy that I do...true Tapestry crochet goes in one direction only, creating a slant. I turn around and go back and forth on each row, resulting in 1) no slant 2) slightly messy edges for the color changes.

It works for what I do.

Anyhoo, here's some more logo pieces I worked up for fun...

The Superman logo (as if ya didn't know)



The TV logo from one of the best TV series ever, Home Movies



I worked the text in rough cross-stitching on the tv background because I realized that bright orange yarn doesn't carry well behind white. It works okay like this I think.

Aaaaaand the logo from yet another of the best TV series ever (the folks who later did Home Movies)- Dr. Katz!



I don't think there's craft fan art for Home Movies or Dr. Katz out there, so this was fun.

Not at all sure what to do with these now...or any of the other tapestry pieces I've done. They're literally sitting in a pile under the bed. Originally I was going to sew them together into a blanket, but with the gauges being so uneven and the Home Movies piece having all the stitches exposed on the back...I'm not sure if it would work. Any ideas?

Oh, is that so? Take THAT!!

The situation: I do thanksgiving with my boyfriend's wonderful family, and Christmas with my folks. My parents drove back to our hometown for thanksgiving, came back, nothing big was shakin'. Then I got a call Sunday (actually, a series of calls) saying that they were not going to drive back to the hometown for Christmas after all this year, and we should start our own tradition in town now. (My folks and I ended up living in the same town -not our home town- by accident. Long story)

Anyhoo, they didn't tell me at first why we weren't going back for X-mas, but I knew it was big. Then they let me in on it. You know why? Because it turns out we were voted out of Christmas.

Has survivor taken over the whole freakin' world?

What actually happened was this: for years we did a gift exchange. Everyone met at Grandma's, the siblings picked a name of one person to buy for, the grandkids all picked a name amongst themselves, so everyone got and gave one gift. Then we got the bright idea that instead of one $25 dollar gift, we could all buy everyone a $5 gift. Works the same: there are 5 grandkids and 5 siblings.

Then financial trouble hit, and some of the siblings complained that they couldn't afford to buy and didn't want to receive if they couldn't buy. So they leaned on grandma, and it was decreed that NO ONE could bring presents. To christmas. Ooookay. Fine then.

Fast forward to thanksgiving. The moment my parents leave for the 4 hr drive home, the rest of the entire family decided that it wouldn't be fun to do no presents, so they'd just have the grandkids exchange. Except for me. They decided to leave me out. I admit, I am the oldest, but only by 2 years. They came up with rules that excluded me but left in the next youngest cousin (if you were still in college the age limit "didn't apply")

My mom, and thus me, have always been the black sheep of the family. When grandma bought presents "for all the grandkids" she always "forgot" mine. Even though I was the only one who lived in the same town.

Now, this isn't about gifts...it's the principle. Isn't it slightly screwed up when there are 5 kids to decide to exclude ONE of them from the gift giving? And do it when she isn't there, and after waiting for her parents to leave before voting? How many families out there exclude anyone of any age from the holiday?

I'm ...mad. Let's leave it at that.

So I'm not going. But the "Take THAT!" part of this post is that I'm dealing with my frustration at this by putting all of my energy behind doing RAOK for the folks at Crochetville. I went through all the wish lists and am going to meet as many as I can. If my family doesn't want me and my crafty giftness, I'll spend that energy on strangers that can appreciate it. I don't really celebrate Christmas, but I like the spirit of it, and that's how I'm going to keep that spirit alive.

The silver lining? It prompted from my bf the funniest yet sweetest condolences ever. Such as "I'm sorry my family is jewish, because otherwise we'd love to have you to ourselves and have the best Christmas you've ever had." And my all-time favorite "hey, my folks love you. They told me that if we split up, they'd have to think long and hard about which of us they were going to keep."

Oh, another thing...

Two posts in one day! Good for me :)

Just wanted to mention that Press Start, the video game comedy movie I help with/live with/work on, for which the fake commercial below was made (after I obsessively crocheted dolls for it...yeah, I'm sick I know) also has other nifty side things. Such as what, I hear you shout?

Such as an animated series! Yes, it's true! The writer and the editor get a scripts, find guest actors, record edit and animate a 3 minute cartoon every month. The new episode premiers the final friday of every month, which means the new one is up today. As an extra bonus, in this one my voice is added to the cacophony...I play the annoying little yellow guy (Zippy) who flies around incoherently.

Hope I don't get typecast...

If you're into videogames, go check it out at www.pressstarmovie.com/bonuslevels

Habits are hard to break

So, today I dropped off five scarves and three hats that I had crocheted in a charity collection box at work. For the past week I have been going through my yarn stash and trying to figure out how to turn every last scrap into something someone could use. I've been piling up odds and ends of gifts bought but never given, intent on shipping them to folks on Crochetville as random acts of kindness. I've spent hours after work baking and freezing bread and cookies to be given out later. And why?

I think because we're getting into full Holiday season. The reason I'm blathering on about it is not because I'm proud of myself, but because I'm confused. Because I don't do Christmas. Used to, not anymore. Haven't celebrated it for years. So why when November is winding down do I get this super strong urge to give gifts? Not that I'm against charity, or giving- I'm just in favor of them as a year round thing, not as part of a religious holiday.

So if I don't believe in Christmas, and don't celebrate it, why am I suddenly seized by an impulse to pile up gifts and ship them out?

I'll still send stuff out and donate because people seem to need pick-me-ups more this time of year. And warm goodies are needed more as it gets colder. But still, it's an odd habit I to not have quite broken yet. Christmas must-do-everything guilt still lives on.

Content!

Okay, so there's no pictures yet. But ha! There is a video :-)

This is an oddity that kept getting odder. My boyfriend and our friends are making a video game parody movie, and I am helping out in the props/set/costumes/general-how-the-heck-can-we-do-this-can-you-fix-it-or-hold-this-up capacity. I also get craaaazy ideas.

So, of course, I had to crochet dolls of the main characters and then beg for pictures. And when going out to take pictures with the dolls, somehow the gang came back...with this!



I love it. And who else has a fake commercial for their crocheted junk? In a language no one who was involved with it actually speaks? (We are all from Illinois)

Incidentally, if you want to know what the heck all this is about and what those odd costumes are for, check out the movie page at http://www.pressstartmovie.com