Borrow, Alter, Repeat

Welcome to my definition of "inspiration" or is that "copyright infringement"?

A peek into my "creative process":

I love "Horton Hears a Who". Loved it as a young kid. Love it as a geriatric kid.

While meandering online one day, I came across this neat little project at about.com:

Horton Clover & Speck pencil topper by Christy Galemore

My fevered little brain started spinning,

"ooo. That's cool. But the stem is supposed to be a swirl of 2 shades of green. Wonder if I can make a crocheted version. How do you make pom-poms again? Oh look, something shiny. Have I checked my Ravelry account today? Hmmm. Let's see....."

and I was off on another webby tangent.

A few days later, on an unrelated amble through e-space, this caught my eye:

Dandelion Headband by Polka Dot Robot

More mental shenanigans,

"So cool. Hmm. Wonder what it would look like in the Horton colors with the little speck and all. The band could be 2-tone swirly and the pom-pom stuck on - ooo ooo ooo - how about if the head band is some normal drug store, super thin plastic, hair color matching band and I crochet a 2-tone stem and "clover" that attaches to the band in a curve like it's falling onto the person's head? "Clover"? What's that about. Dandelions are puffy, clovers are... leaves, aren't they? I wonder. Need to find a pic. Where did I put that Google images bookmark...."

and thus ended another episode of "Short Attention Span Theater". But things like this linger in the back of my head. Growing, flexing, festering and most of all, plotting to take over the world - or at least my head which is often swollen enough to be mistaken for a world. ;-)

Random thoughts occured,

"But what about something for Horton. He was always holding the clover. Hmm still haven't looked up clover at google pix yet. Eah. Later."

"Maybe the headband part could be gray in honor of Horton's trunk?"

"why am I thinking headband? That's so simple and dull and already done. I never want to just re-paint the wheel. What have I been working on that would look cool with a pom-pom. OH! The swirly hats I posted at Ravelry."

So I looked up the pattern I had worked up for a 2-color swirl beanie, skull-cap, whatever.

Swirly Caps

and to amuse myself I revisited:

Me and the Kilroy crochet bear

To quote Vlad (not Vlad the cute little cookie baking bunny), "Easy peasy, bro."

Quick yarn run to the craft store, switch out colors on the spirals, add kicky little ribbed band in a shiny pachydermy gray, struggle through how to make and attach a big ass pom-pom and ta-da:

Horton Hears a What cap

The pom-pom is horrible and not well attached. Shaggy and floppy - terror-ific combination of looks. But for the picture, with my hand holding onto the pom from the inside, it is exactly what I wanted to make. It's me - odd, unique, quirky, unusual, uneven, loud, and fun.

Now what? Am I going to sell it? the pattern? Will I do anything at all with it?

Nah.

Sometimes I just need to get an idea out of my head before it declares complete martial law on my brain function.

Maybe someday something marketable will germinate in my head. Until then, I will waste resources and time having fun and staying out of the booby hatch.

Huh? What do you mean there's some people outside with a big butterfly net? Oopsie. Gotta go.

Hook on!
C

Measure once, cut twice

or is that the other way around?

Doesn't seem to matter much to me, because I evidently enjoy doing things the most difficult way possible. Especially when a deadline is involved. Like for contests. I get so excited about the challenge of a topic that I start on the fun part and then end up having to push and pull and prod at the end project until it meets entry criteria.

It's a rather harrowing way to live and I look craggy enough without the addition of stress fractures furrowing my brow.

So when I heard about the "Wish You Were Here" fabric postcard challenge at Tohono Chul park in Arizona earlier this year, I decided to be terribly clever and approach the project logically.

Went well... for a while. Hit Google images hard for pictures of and info about Arizona and Tohono Chul. Developed an idea, sketched out a background at full size and even crocheted it first! Then I let myself start on the fun stuff - the figures that would populate my little postcard.

The largest and center-most figure was to be a ghostly Kokopelli figure, caught mid-dance and playing his flute. I started free forming the figure in paranormal- suggestive white thread and forgot all about checking the size against the background. You guessed it - too dog-gone big. Start over... and over... and over until I finally got the right size - and the figure was too solid to convey the idea of "spirit". To heck with it and switched to a cut out tracing of the final crocheted figure in tulle.

So I wound up with:

Kokopellis on parade!

Outlining the tulle in white looked like poo. I wanted shine damn you! Had plenty of the copper metallic embroidery thread left so tried that and the stuff got all bitchy with me as multi-strand floss tends to do when I'm in a rush. Added bonus - it blended in too much with the Copper Mist I used for the desert sand:

Evolution of Kokopelli

Think I did better with the desert animals?

"Puny humans! Critters smash!"

So this was three days before desperate, expensive, overnight-mail deadline and I was tempted to simply include a note saying that the setting sun was a nuclear event that Godzilla-ed the creatures instead of the derivation of the Arizona State flag that it obviously was. But, what the hey, I technically had three days left. Plenty of time! Plenty! Besides, didn't I have some silver metallic sewing thread somewhere?

End result:

Arizona Night Song

I know, I hate the title too but the alternatives were no better: Critters of the Night, Disco Feral, Hootenanny, Primal Pachanga, Things That Go Disco in the Night... my snarky flair for titling had abandoned me. sigh

Oh well, 20/20 hindsight. Done, sent, accepted, in the catalog. It doesn't even matter that everything was accepted and that participants had to purchase a copy of the catalog to see their own narcissistic names in print. It's over. And I learned a valuable lesson in planning, timing and responsible making.

Yeah.

Sure.

Always
Cecinatrix

Caption Chihuahua

Poor little doggie. Never saw the glue gun coming.

Crafty Chica caption contest - just had to try some things out:


The Sighuahua

The Tacohuahua

The Tequilahuahua

tee hee.
Hook on and stuff.