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:



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.

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?