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