Lined Hats...Crochet Happiness

So here are my first two completed hats. They both are lined with black fleece. Lining hats is hard, but I think it is worth it. I need to work on my measuring of lining though since the lining doesn't have the elasticity of the yarn.

 

Extra Wiggle Room

If you haven't checked out Nancy Upton's blog, you should: http://extrawiggleroom.tumblr.com/. She's a gorgeous full-figured woman that's at war with the fashion industry--in the funniest and sexiest way possible.

She's put together a parody fashion shoot that is funny and artistically gorgeous.

I followed some of the links to other sites to see what people are saying about her, and there are mixed reviews. One fashion site she links to is absolutely crude, calling Nancy disgusting, saying she needs to lose weight, and berating heavy women for eating too much.

I kind of want to punch those people in the face. More importantly, I want to compare the impact of her fashion shoot on me versus the kind of things I see in most ads.

I'm 5'7" and have the following dimensions: 34" bust, 28" waist, 38" hips. I'm not the supposed ideal skinniness, but I'm sort of on the skinny side of curvy. I look at the fashion shoot with the gorgeous Nancy Upton, and it's an entirely positive experience.

1. I feel better about my own weight, and not in a "she's fat and I'm not" kind of way, but in a she's beautiful, so I must be too way.
2. Looking at her wearing clothes makes me feel like I could pull them off. I would go shopping and perhaps even wear makeup (which I am usually too lazy to do) after looking at Nancy's shoot. When I see an ad with the usual wraiths, I think, "I'm not sure that would look good on me." Nancy Upton is already making me feel good about myself.
3. In other words, Nancy motivates me towards the kind of materialism that good marketing would hope to encourage in me. The wraiths don't work that well.

So kudos to Nancy. She rocks and has become a hero of mine.

Baking Day Bravery

Last weekend, I didn't do any of the crazy baking that I planned to do. I just crocheted like mad.

Today, I just did all the dishes so that I can make another mess baking some stuff with the giant bowl of grated zucchini I have (and handful of frozen overripe bananas). It took me like a half hour to grate the zucchini I had. It was 2 feet long and probably had a 4 inch diameter.

I know I want to make zucchini bread with some chocolate chips in them. It's one of my childhood favorites. I did like the zucchini cornbread I made last time, but it won't go well with chocholate, and I'm trying to make some healthier snacks to satisfy my sweet tooth.

Then, while I was Googling zucchini bread recipes (because internet reviews always reveal the best-of-the-best) I saw an add for a blueberry muffin recipe, and I thought "those look amazing, too bad I don't have blueberries." My secondary thought was I will go buy blueberries and make those scrumptious looking muffins and then let Chris know because he likes blueberry stuff. I'm cruel like that (he lives too far away to share).

Thinking further, I realized if I text Chris an intentionally tormenting message about amazing blueberry muffins, he will just tell me they should have been scones.  That got me thinking that 1) I should try to make a chocolate zucchini scone, and 2) I wanted to make chocolate banana scones anyway.

So when I head out shopping later, I will stop by the grocery store to pick up cream for making scones. I think I need more sugar for all this baking anyway.

Like all my strange shopping ventures, I will also be looking for a brown cardigan, returning an air filter that wasn't right and getting the right one, and getting more color-changing yarn to make a scarf to go with the sock monkey hat because I forgot that part. I actually have to go to 5 different stores to accomplish this. :(  Best get started.

I will post on the success of the zucchini scones and perhaps provide a recipe or two later.

First Hat Finished (...ish)

I finished my first fancy hat (well mostly). Check it out! I still need to line it with felt and add the tassles to the bottom of the ties.

Poor Packaging

I am a solid fan of Häagen-Dazs dessert products. My personal favorite is the coffee ice cream, but I also like to eat the vanilla frozen yogurt with my personal addition of nerds.

If you're a Häagen-Dazs fan too, you'll know that the company color codes their froyo and ice cream tubs. Ice cream tubs are red, and froyo tubs are green. So imagine the trouble I have now that, after my most recent trip to grocery store, I possess a vanilla raspberry froyo and a green tea ice cream.

I open the fridge and my brain thinks "red=raspberry" and "green=green tea," but not so! No, every single time, I grab the wrong tub because the ice cream-froyo color-coded system defies the flavors I have selected.

I better go back to coffee ice cream and vanilla froyo. The color-coding doesn't mess me up then.

Of course, their website has just informed me that they have a lemon option in their "five ice cream" selection, which includes ice creams that are composed of only five ingredients. That sounds like my next ice cream purchase for sure.

Hat Sketches

Here are my hat sketches with some PhotoShop coloring. The baby hat is actually going to be multi-colored yarn, not orange.

So there are the hat plans. I wanted to do something weirder for myself, but couldn't think of anything I really liked, so if you have any ideas, I might change my plan.

Working on Owl Hats

So I am working on owl hats for Kerrie's impending bebe. (Nervous smile face I picked up from hanging out with Chris.) Not too shabby. I'm figuring this out. I have a trial hat with one earflap so far. Then I need to do the other earflap and the ears. I kind of want to do one where the eyes are fabric stitched on, but I might do the yarn eyes.

                        

[Pictures are linked to the their approrpriate sources]

I don't plan for my hats to be exactly like either of these. There are a million owl hat ideas out there, so I am working on something a bit inspired by all.

I also think I might like to do something a bit different for everyone. Not all owls. I think baby alone can have an owl. Planning a bull for Dad, maybe a frog for Kerrie, not sure about Molly and myself yet.