Monday, September 14, 2009

Knittin' Crap: Paying It Fearward

I got my Pay It Forward projects #3 and #4 to their recipients over the past couple days. They were rather ambitious, but since both people were real-life friends of mine, I felt motivated to make something memorable for each.

Jeanne had asked me awhile back for a shark. I never saw a pattern I really liked, so I came up with my own. The construction is somewhat unorthodox because I wanted specific attributes, like only the right side of single crochet stitches showing and not having to graft a head onto the torso, which just wouldn't look right to me. So, after a good deal of trial and error, and somehow getting one eye one row removed from the other even after I counted 3 times, here's the shark:

Shark! Shark!

Next, Dan got a Chinese hopping vampire. Several years ago, I showed him my DVD (yes, I proudly own it) of the 1985 Hong Kong movie classic Mr Vampire, a film I mentioned here awhile back. I was scratching around for ideas for what to make Dan, who, when I showed him the film, couldn't believe the vampires were based on a real Chinese myth. Nooooo, he had to confirm it later with Chinese friends of his. Anyway, to prove for once and for all that hopping vampires really do exist, I made one. Again, I did some unorthodox things to get certain details I wanted, but he turned out super-cute. And I referred to my aforementioned Mr Vampire DVD often to get the details right. He comes complete in Qing Dynasty dress, with the Buddhist prayer bead necklace and long, black fingernails. I even made the Chinese death blessing to keep him under control.

Mr Vampire Mr Vampire

After I took the initial pictures of Mr Vampire there, I went to the computer to get them off the card. When I came back, I found Spoon snuggling the vampire. Who knew a stiff corpse could be so cuddly?

Mr Vampire + Spoon

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The shark is AWESOME! Great work on perfecting the look! I think it looks great and not at all like a dolphin as some do! I have been looking for some projects to make boys...there are so many dolls, etc for girls and the shark is perfect for boys! Keep up the work!

Love the Spoonerisms! Cats are hilarious and I love the pic of snuggling with the corpse...Precious!

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