A Wild Yarn

My friend Elise bought a knitting book several years ago with the most hilarious, hideous sweater patterns to make for men.  The patterns themselves could probably have been made a little more classy by using different yarns, actually, but the models used to display the sweaters were beyond redemption.  Truly.  Every one of them was posed in such a way that we could just tell they had been talked into this particular modelling gig by someone they owed lots of money to, because there was no possible way for them to pull off "sexy beast" and "my sister knit this for me" at the same time (which seemed to be what the pattern designers were going for).  

As we sat in the park and looked through the book, we laughed until tears were in our eyes, each picture funnier than the last!  And ever since then, we've been looking for the same sorts of patterns and pictures for each other...kind of like unbelievable JELL-O recipes; so awful you can't look but you can't stop looking.  

I think I finally have enough images that I can make up the calendar of sweater centerfolds that we've been planning.  I plan on hanging mine in the living room like a piece of art. You know, similar to a velvet Elvis; everyone will see it, but no one will say anything because it's impossible to come up with anything that really does it justice. 

As a teaser, I'm going to post a few NEVER BEFORE REVEALED IMAGES here, so that you can see what still cracks us up:

As if the peach and mint green cap sleeve sweater wasn't enough, the polyester pants demand a pose that makes you squirm uncomfortably at the viewing of the whole mess...

Interpretive dance should probably never be used to sell sweater patterns for men.

Belted sweaters seemed to be easier to carry off, especially if one didn't have to pose with any other models.  (We have much better belted sweater images. I didn't want to shock you TOO much before the calendar came out...) I was hoping to catch a glimpse of a Star Wars guy in the background of this set, but no such luck.

I think she's grinning because she won a fantasy football bet in which these guys had to wear the sweaters for a week in Lukenback, Texas or something.  

I cannot come up with a single person, male or female, that I'd gift with a granny square tank top...even the ones that I'm not feeling so charitable toward right now.  No one deserves that sort of abuse. 

(But these models seem completely tickled with their wardrobe at the moment! There may have been a cocktail party just before the photos to ease the pain.  I don't know.)

Here's that "look" I was talking about....he's not happy, Bob; not happy. 

The best for last...

Elise hasn't seen this one!  

The photographer was obviously in a hurry to wrap up the shoot because he didn't give this poor chap time to put on his polyester double knit wide-legged pants! (He DID manage to snag a sexy hat, probably hoping to draw attention away from...*ahem*....and it almost worked.) 

Gives one a whole new perspective on knitting, doesn't it?!

Won't this be a great calendar?

And a year long testament to twisted friends forever...

Carving it up!

Our school had a Halloween party on Friday (more on that in another post) and the party organizer extraordinaire (not me...I'd the the party organizer franticlinaire or something like that) told us there'd be a jack o'lantern contest.

You saw the word "contest", didn't you?

Or, as Maggie and I prefer to call it, "We've Gotta Win Opportunity".

I KNOW.

I know!!!!

I'm going to get all sorts of scoldings and tut-tuttings about competitiveness and how some things are just for fun and that not everything in life is a contest.

Of course.

But this WAS a contest.

It was billed as such!

If it's going to be an exhibition, then it needs to be called that.

(And the party organizer extraordinaire, who reads this blog, is now rolling her eyes and laughing at us....)

Now.

Maggie had picked up a Better Homes and Gardens Halloween magazine about a month ago, with all sorts of ideas for the holiday, including decorating one's entire house in the theme of the Mad Tea Party from Alice in Wonderland, and 10-12 full size skeletons posed in various odd situations, like golfing on the front lawn or offering treats off a tray.  (I tell you this so you will realize that I'm NOT as over-the-top crazy as you may first think. I fall in the moderately crazy range.)

In this magazine, there were carved pumpkins of every description, ranging from your basic, traditional triangle eyes and nose, to professionally done real-life portraiture.  She fell in love with the black cat...a simple, very cool and untraditional jack o'lantern.

We were going to do it, anyway, because we both liked the idea, but the "contest" really gave us the push.

There was spray paint involved, so I had to go to the hardware store.

There was tagboard involved so it looked like I was going to have to go to....gulp....Walmart, but fortunately I found it at the grocery store.  Yes!

There were cottonballs and drill-bits involved.

I'm telling you....we were INTO this!

You may be wondering about Angus....

Well. 

He just wanted a scary face pumpkin. 

I thought I was going to do a witch pumpkin, myself, and found a little old used witch's hat at the second hand store, plopped it on a plain pumpkin and was trying to think about the face.

He saw THAT and immediately wanted a PIRATE jack o'lantern!  (I'm sure you didn't see THAT coming...)

What follows is the documentary of the 2011 jack o'lanterns:

Zee blank gourd...

We didn't turn the kids loose with the knives....BUT they DID have to get the pumpkin guts out.

It was a deliciously hideous experience.

Some folks can't take the slime, so they use tools. They also use persuasive big, green eyes when they tire of the tools and toil....

So, Maggie wanted to taste the raw pumpkin, because she is a full-sensory sort of girl.  If she's going to experience something, there's no halfway with this child.  She tasted the flesh, she tasted the slime and then decided the seeds would probably be much the same so she passed on them. 

She was also the one who squealed with the awfulness of it all, then went back for more.  Because she's just dying to hunt something, we told her that when she started hunting, she'd have to gut out her own animals, just like gutting the pumpkin.  This was a startling thought.  You mean....take all the smooshy, icky, slimy stuff out of their tummies? Yup.  Hmmmm......
After thinking it through, she decided that she could do that, but was grateful it wouldn't have to happen for a few years.

There's a gap in the process, because my hands were covered in pumpkin goo, too. 

Here's the basic cat face, after 40 minutes of intense, precise carving:

It looks pretty simple, but I wanted it exquisitely smooth and clean.

In the meanwhile, the boys pulled together a Jack (Sparrow) O'Lantern, acceptably scary and....is that a TTU symbol on the eyepatch? The double T was too much, but this is the look they're going for...
(Incidentally, when Angus got up the next morning, he came running out and looked his pumpkin in the face, sweetly saying, "Guns up, Pirate Punkin!"  That's my boy...)

The black cat, after two coats of spray paint and tagboard accessories.  Maggie tried to hug it, and introduced all the real live cats to their new friend.  They were decidedly unimpressed. (Figaro, however, snuck onto the table in the middle of the night and chewed the ends of the Pumpkin Cat's ears!  I think he felt a little more threatened than he let on during the introductions....)

After ear repairs, the jack o'lanterns were hauled to the school party, where they rahther stood out....
(You'll see more in the party post....)

Did they win?

Well, every pumpkin won in different categories, because it's not really a cut-throat sort of contest, you know.  Maggie was SO hoping for a cut-throat contest, but was satisfied with the acknowledgement of a scary design. (Scary? Loony, maybe...)

The good thing is that everyone was pleased, the pumpkins met expectations, we had family time in the production of them, and they're considered members of the family for another couple days.

Dye job...

I don't know why this cartoon struck me as so funny!

Maybe because I need a dye job in the worst way, and it reminds me to perhaps be a little more subtle...
We dyed Easter eggs Saturday afternoon, on the picnic table, in (are you ready for this?) 60 degree weather!!
Angus dyed the same 3 eggs, 15 times. He's very thorough.

Aren't they pretty? Just love the colors against the white paper towel.

"And this one is mine. And this one is mine..."

"Where did it go?"

I LOVE Easter colors!

This was the most relaxed egg dying I've ever done with kids.

And afterward, they stayed outside and played on the playground in their underwear.

And we ate supper on the deck with Daddy.