Candy Corn Cuteness

Happy Halloween (tomorrow)!  My ward has already had their party.  I went as a candy corn

My cuteness knows no bounds.

It's felt, natch.  But the flash gave it a sheen, thus making me look like Judy Jetson in her space age ice cream parlor uniform.  I added that orange band around the hat because without it looked like the Pope's.

In other news:  We had our Primary sacrament meeting presentation* today and the kids KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE PARK.  They were so calm and poised and not a single one of them showed any sign of nerves.  Even my little four year old who refused to say his part in any of the practices we had finally lifted his head and spoke into the mic.  They all sang loud and clear and were so sweet and funny and cute.  Ugh, those kids.  They're the best.

*Mormon Glossary:  The 3-11 year old set gets to take over the main portion of church and share what they have been learning.  It is, by far, the best Sunday of the year.  Aside from them being so sweet and adorable you know that at any moment one of them could absolutely lose it.  It's kind of thrilling.

Because the World's Largest Felt Collection is about to eat my apartment.

It's 100 degrees outside and what am I thinking of?  Christmas.  Why?  Because I miss eggnog.  And also because Camille recently reminded me of how harried I was last December, up to my eyeballs in felt, and felt, and more felt.  Oh, the felt.  And she suggested that I send out the word now that if you're interested in a Custom Made Felt Thingy I'm taking orders. 

In the past I've done laptop covers:

stockings (Note, I also do regular old stockings with Christmas trees and carolers, if that's what you're looking for.)

pillow cases

book marks

and dinosaur cake toppers, which, I suppose could be used as stuffed animals for small children if you don't have a cake to put them on

Basically, just let me know what you want (rachelknecht at gmail dot com) and I'll get back to you on the details and prices and then dive into the World's Largest Felt Collection and make it happen. Because I love you and want you to be happy.  And because I don't want to be stitching felt until my fingers bleed on Christmas Eve.

Ho ho ho!

Dinorific!

My dear friend and personal patron, Hannah, got married and moved to Washington.  Boo - I mean to the WA part.  Married - hooray!  And I couldn't make it to her wedding because it was during girls camp.  Double Boo!  And to prove what an extreme sacrifice it was to not be there I will just tell you they had live band karaoke AND a taco truck.  To say that I was heart broken about missing it is an understatement.  Not only because of the tacos but mostly because Hannah has been one of those friends who just lightens up your life.  We bonded over our shared love of The Blue Castle (you've read it, right?  RIGHT?!) and it has been nothing but unicorns and felt stockings every since.

So when she asked if I would make her cake topper I had to say yes. 

Some background:  1.)  Hannah has been a firm and faithful believer in the funny things I make out of felt. 2.)  She and her husband wear glasses.  3.)  He likes dinosaurs.  A lot. 

This is what she requested and I was thrilled to do it (let's not talk about the crappy nature of these photos):

Love you Medici!  Remember that felt is cheap to ship.

Nine things about Christmas '010

1.  Nephews
2.  The most stress-free family photo session of all time, which generated this gem of Gina and Chris auditioning for a Calvin Klein ad.  Oh how we have laughed and laughed over it.
3.  Sisters Christmas Eve Pedicures!
4.  Lindsay, who is a legit massage therapist, set up her massage chair by the fire on Christmas Day (even though it was only about 65 outside.  We like to be cozy.  Okay, scratch that, I like to be cozy.) and worked us all over.  Here's a tip:  if you're sister comes to you and says, "I'm thinking about going to massage school," chip in for her tuition.  Worth it!
5.  Did I mention the nephews?  Because Holy Cats, they are the Best Thing Ever.  Seriously.  I said the phrase, "That's enormous!" to Ben and he said, "Is that a fat joke?"  I mean, come on!  The kid is 3 and has better timing than most people I know.
6.  I should also mention that my entire family was in town.  If you have spent any amount of time with my family you know what this means - lots of jokes about our heads.
7.  I didn't get out of my pajamas all day.  It was my reward for...

8.  Finishing all of my felt projects at 5:30 pm on Christmas Eve.  I sewed the last stitch onto Kylea's stocking and then did a victory lap.  I made everyone high-five me.

9.  Earlier this month I was commissioned to do this:

Yeah, it's the entire A-Team in felt on a pillow case.  It is as rad as it looks.  Nothing says, "Merry Christmas" more than Hannibal in a scarf.

Felt

The felt.  Oh, the felt.  Oh, the hours and hours and hours I spend looking at the felt.  And cutting the felt.  And stitching the felt.  With my fingers that are now nicked and ripped by needles.  This is what the felt makes me look like at the end of the long nights of work.

(Side note:  Isn't Camille's head gloriously large in this picture?  I'm a little jealous.)

But all the cross-eyed-ness has paid off because there have been a few masterpieces from the felt.  I can only show you this one though:

Remember Bob?  How he won a bookmark of his choice?  Yeah, he chose Yoda.  Which instantly makes me think he is a man of Taste and Wisdom.  Speaking of Bob, did you know that his brother has also won a bookmark from this blog?  If I were you I'd start formulating conspiracy theories.

In unrelated news:  I feel like we had a very healthy debate on the merits of certain Hershey's Miniatures.  Using my scientific super brain (or, you know, a pen and some scratch paper) I crunched the numbers and came up with the following data:

You like

1.  Krackle

2.  Milk

3.  Mr. Goodbar

4.  Special Dark

Hm.  Weird.  But we can't refute the data.  Feel free to mail me any left over Special Dark you have hanging out in your candy jar.

Things that I am loving lately

1.  All the custom felt orders that I have in the queue.  All of them are gifts so I can't show you until after Christmas but we've got some fun and creative people out there and they've turned the World's Largest Felt Collection into a party.  Also, a sweat shop - because oy, the time I spend hunched over it.

2.  The movie Enchanted April.  I rewatched it tonight and wept all over the felt.  Some people have told me that it's dull.  But some people have told me they like vanilla ice cream.  Which is to say we cannot always trust some people's judgement.  I will recount that once I got a screeching phone call from Amanda that went something like this:  "I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU NEVER SAT ME DOWN AND MADE ME WATCH ENCHANTED APRIL BECAUSE IT'S WONDERFUL AND I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS!!!!!!!!!"

3.  Shiny produce.  For the last 2 weeks, every time I've been in the produce section of the grocery store, I've been mesmerized by how shiny it all is.  The produce in Tunisia looks exactly as it does in its natural state - dirty.  This is a good sign and it almost always tasted amazing.  I know that shiny fruit equals pesticides and wax and mediocre flavor.  But gosh it's pretty.  I spent about 5 minutes yesterday just gazing at the celery because I couldn't get over how sparkly it was.  And don't even get me started on the apples.  It was like the Vegas strip - all aglow.

4.  Mint truffle Hershey kisses.  Knights of Columbus!  I've eaten my weight in them in just 3 days.

5.  The giant disco ball ornament on the top of my Christmas tree.

Fajitas - not so traditional

Last night was Eid-ul-Fitr, the festival commemorating the end of Ramadan. You know what this means, right? The gellato shop down the street will finally be open during the day. Rejoice! Most restaurants and other food places are closed during the day for Ramadan because everyone is fasting. Although someone told me the other day that she walked into a cafe that had newspapers up on the windows and found about 50 men inside eating and smoking. Rebels.

We celebrated last night with a few Embassy families by eating a not-quite-so-traditional meal of fajitas and roasted pork.

In other entirely unrelated news I am finally getting around to showing you the lastest felty creation. Remember how Hannah commissioned a Gandalf Macbook cover for a friend? She commissioned one for herself as well.

Spock

Rad.

I miss the World's Largest Felt Collection but I'm glad the the last one I did before leaving (she picked it up literally minutes before I walked out the door.) was such an awesome one. Thanks for having the vision, Hannah!

Don't Mess With Chuck

And now for the newest felt creation: Chuck Norris.



Wearing his Action Jeans.

Inspired by this little gem:

He's up on Etsy if you'd like one for yourself or a loved one. Or an enemy...as a warning.

Also, I don't think I ever showed you a custom order I did. A friend of a friend contacted me and asked if I would make Hurley from lost.

I think he turned out okay considering I stopped watching that show after the first season. I don't mind cliff hangers or unanswered questions but I felt like it was just taunting me with all its mysteries.

If you want a custom order you can also get that at Etsy. I'm up for the challenge. I'll do just about anything, so long as it makes me laugh. And remember that I won't be able to make these for three months because the World's Largest Felt Collection doesn't travel well. So if you're thinking stocking stuffer, think fast before my esty shop goes on vacation.

Things I loved about Saturday

1.) Going to the gym which justified a breakfast of Holy French Toast, thus cancelling out all of the gym points but increasing my Eternal Total Happiness points by 1000.



2.) Working on a new bird:



3.) A present on my door step (thank you, thank you, thank you Amanda!):



4.) Dinner and a movie with the girls:



As you can see, it was a good day.

Brief Complimentary Movie Review: Bring a tissue. Maybe two. Seriously. I knew how it was going to end, (Hint: She died a spinster. I don't know if she owned any cats.), and it was HIGHLY fictionalized (they based the entire movie off of one letter she wrote to her sister mentioning a man she danced with several times at a ball.), and I'm not the World's Biggest Anne Hathaway Fan, or the World's Biggest They Casted a Marginally Famous American Actress to Play an Iconic British Character Just So They Could Appeal to the American Audience Fan either, and while these people beat me out as the World's Biggest Jane Austen Fans, I have read all of her books multiple times and I love her, which I think makes me a big fan in the lower-case sense. Let's just say that while I was excited about seeing it I was fully prepared to be disappointed. And yet...well, it was pretty much fantastic. Anne Hathaway didn't annoy me, the rest of the cast was terrific, including James McAvoy, who I wanted to tuck inside my pocket and let him say nice things to me, and the story they concocted was fanciful but entirely compelling. Go see it, preferably with your mom and sisters so you don't have to cry alone.

And on the banana front, I think we can safely say that the idea people at Reese's are brain damaged monkeys. Check the poll results out. I think that's fairly significant. Rac e-mailed me this weekend stating that she didn't get to vote but if she had it would have been for yum. Sorry, it will only count as an asterisk. The results I'm sending to Reese's will state that 100% of my readers* hate banana flavoring and they should immediately stop production.

*If I didn't love Rac so much I wouldn't even put the asterisk in.

An open letter

To the wee little bird who wouldn't move out of my way this morning at the gas station:

That thing I was doing with my hands, that's the universal sign for "fly away!" Learn it. Seriously, I was late for work and you could totally see that there wasn't a whole lot of space between my car and the gas pump but you just stood there, blocking my way, like it was Trader Joe's and we were in the produce aisle. Have you been? It's right down the street if you feel like going and blocking other people. It's like they hire people to stand in your way there. You could earn a little income. And they have really good snacks.

Anyway, I think it was pretty obvious that my only options were to either go around the car to get to my door or hop over you. But here's the problem, and don't take this personally, but I don't actually like birds. You kind of scare me. I'm fine with you flying around or hanging out in trees, but when actually confronted with one up close and outside of a cage, I get a weird feeling that you're going to pass some kind of horrible disease on to me (ever heard of Avian flu?) or you're going to fly up and get tangled in my hair or peck my eyes out or poop on me. I didn't like either option because to go around the car would have been pretty silly, and to hop over you meant that I would have tempted the whole disease/flying up scenario. So I tried shooing you. No luck. I tried moving my foot in your direction. You didn't even flinch. You just gave me a look that said, "What do you want, lady?" Um, I thought it was pretty obvious what I wanted. For your tiny bird butt to get out of my way. But you didn't get it so I hopped, and then made a mad dash into the car and slammed the door shut because the whole Avian flu thing seemed like a real possibility if you weren't moving.

Maybe you have bird consumption and you were too weak to fly and you're bird pals couldn't do anything for you so they just left you in the gas station, hoping that someone would pick you up and take you home and hold your little wing while you swoon on the couch. Or maybe it was the bird gang initiation that Katie is always talking about. Maybe you had to try to intimidate someone at the gas station into going around their car. Well, better luck with the next chump, or get well soon. Which ever is the case. Next time, please move.

Sincerly, Rachel

PS. Here's a shot of one of the few Rachel Approved Birds:

Trebuchet? Really?

Did you know this font is called "trebuchet"? Note to self: Find out who names fonts and how to get that job. Because if all I have to do is come up with words that really have no correlation to how a font looks than that's the job for me. When I see this font I don't get the sense that it's hurling large, possibly flaming, objects at advancing armies. Although it is a lovely font. And a fine sounding word.

Ahem...Welcome to my blog.

I feel a little foolish having one. Seriously. Who's going to read it? Absolutely no one, unless I tell them about it, which is pretty unlikely for now. But I like to write and there's a wee little corner in my head (yep, my head has corners. I'm not ashamed.) that thinks maybe I should try it out on an audience larger than myself. And maybe having a blog will force me to write more often (So thought every hopeful writer who has ever started a blog). Time will tell, my little imaginary readers.

Things to expect: amusing anecdotes. I've got a million of them. I've met a lot of people who do zany things every now and then and I like to jot them down. I won't put any real names, because that's just mean. Or is the just mean part the jotting down? Guilt will be the judge of that. And beyond amusing anecdotes, pretty much anything because I have a lot of interests. Felt, for instance. I may have the largest collection of felt in the world. Or at least my aparment complex. Either way, I'm pretty proud of it.