Happy New Year 2010

So long 2009, don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out. Or maybe you should let that door spank you rosy just like the economy did to most of the world this past year. Oh, enough about the suckage that was, time for fun:

"Old" 2009 and Kitten 2010


I really enjoy the whole passing the crown to the baby new year gambit. Probably because of the "Rudolph Saves Baby New Year" animagic/claymation special I saw every year growing up. Or maybe just because it's a fun idea. Conjures images of office parties gone awry. No on wants to see Jones from accounting in a diaper and sash but when the alcohol starts flowing you never know what will happen.

happy new year

An installment in the Surly Kitty Chronicles for all those out there riding the morning after hangover express to hell. Here's hoping at least that you got the day off to wallow in champagne's revenge.

Ahh. Those were the days. Champagne alone in your living room is apparently considered "unhealthy" - whatever. Maybe next year I'll take the time to find some fellow hooligans with which to welcome the new year completely blotto. No party like the one you can only vaguely remember.

Too old to booze the night away anymore, but not too old to grab that hook.

Hook on! (with quiet yarn)

C

Merry Christmas...

... to those that celebrate - love and good cheer to those that don't.

Jingle-Back Rattle Snakes

The rattlers are my contribution to the festivities this year. My cardstock-backed, hand-crocheted ornament posing as present. I've been spending effort instead of money for a few years now. This year I thought I'd expend a little extra effort and photoshop/powerpoint my guts out.

Ticked-Off Kitty in a Wreath

Ah well, at least it makes me smile...

...like a big 'ole goober as a matter of fact! ;-D

MERRY CHRISTMAS ONE AND ALL!!

Much Love and Hook On!
Cecinatrix

Happy Holidays - Surly Cat style

I finished these a while ago but haven't been able to photograph them worth a puny little darn. (That is the weeniest swear I have ever perpetrated.) But I wanted to share the joy:

Happy Hanukkah!

I know little about Hanukkah but I don't like how most non-Jewish crafters seem to ignore this wonderful ancient holiday. Besides, how often is royal blue an appropriate cat color?

Merry Christmas!

Something I'm more familiar with, although we weren't much for holly in the Rio Grande Valley. Never snowed down there during my Cretaceous Period youth so evergreens were pretty limited to fuzzy artificial trees and fake wreaths under the Advent Candles. "Fresh" trees were available but they were so dry by the time they got all the way down to the RGV that the huge trail of pine needles through the parking lot in town, the car, the garage and then the house was too much hassle for the regular folk. Ooo. And my aunt, the hip working divorce', had a trendy silver tree. I loved that thing. Even if I can't remember if the ornaments were blue or pink. It was like visiting Hollywood. But I loved assembling our tree back home with my parents and brother even more. Cats underfoot, TV specials playing in the background and of course a happy, funny family now halved and tired.


Anyway...

Surly Turkey Kitty

At least it's a great excuse to have ridiculous amounts of turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie and pecan pie and cool whip and those cool "heat and serve" rolls all over again. Just have to remember not to try and dress up the cats.

Hook On!
C

Holiday Bangle

In a slightly subversive nod to the holidays, I made the following:



Not so subversive you may say.



I guess not, but I couldn't bring myself to use the proper term nor the rougher euphemisms "frickin' " ,"freakin' "or even "friggin' ". Just a little ennui on my part not a full on hating of the season.

Hmm. Words are funny. "Subversive" - My little bracelet doesn't mean I want to overthrow, destroy or corrupt Christmas (as dictionary.com defines it). Just want to poke at the falseness of certain excesses in the more secular rituals affiliated with the season. I guess its then a gentle irony.

Can irony be gentle? The defining terms of "mean-spirited" and/or "disrespectful" seem to have barnacled themselves to "irony" lately.

I'm not some Stepford-bred Pollyanna. I am, indeed, a fairly damned sarcastic individual, mean-spirited and disrespectful in my own right, but even I don't get the hate seething just beneath the surface of some of the "ironic crafts" out there.

Socio-politico-xenophobic-ethnocentric commentary - all good. Land of the free, home of the brave, holding rights to be self-evident and all. Just seems you shouldn't have to hate something to have fun with what you think is wrong with it.

Matter of degrees? or simply lily-livered posturing?

Ok. No one asked to see any of the fitful stream of consciousness I must endure in my waking hours. I'll stop now.

Happy Flippin' Holidays

Hook on!
C

Snow in Purgatory

It's snowing! So what??? Its 10 in the morning and there is snow. Real flurries (okay jr sized flurries but come on!)

Click on the pictures - look real close. It was so much cooler and heavier than the camera caught.



So what, again? This is Texas, it was 90 degrees yesterday. Well maybe last month but still the weather didn't dip below 70 until last week and here we are.



Yeah sure it snowed last Christmas too but that was at night. The photo above is the same view not the same shot. I'm excited not insane - I'm ill prepared to venture out into the actual melee. I like cool weather not slippery fluffy rain. Anyway.

I just got so excited. Me. Queen of the jaded ennui. I run hot and cold (so to speak). I'm either blase and cynical or excited and rather giddy. For some reason the snow has me talking fast and smiling like a goof. I even put on my Horton hat and let my brother take a picture.



Ahhh. The wonderful wizard of odd.

Okay I need to calm down and get back to work on my Christmas cards. I'm usually pushing these things to the last minute but even for me, I'm running behind.

More on the cards later.

Tee hee.

Snow.

My God I'm still geeking out!

I AM the princess of planet geektron. sigh

Who cares? Life's too short!

Hook on, me maties!

C

Happy Thanksgiving 2009

Technically Thanksgiving no longer but...

Happy Turkey Day Anyway

I had a devil of a time taking a photo of this little guy that was 1) lit properly and 2) in focus. I really don't know how to use my camera and every photo is a mystery until it is downloaded and blown up in Photoshop. Ah, technology in the hands of the impatient and lazy.

So anywho, this kitty is part of a series I'm allegedly planning. Still in the half-formed scribbly sketch and slowly growing list of ideas phase. The idea being that of kitties dressed up for the holidays against their will. Sitting prettily for portraiture but not happy. Working title for the series is the Surly Kitty Chronicles. This particular kitty is currently titled "Surly Pilgrim Kitty" but hopefully a more clever title will eventually emerge from the murky depths of my tryptophan addled brain.

His angry eyebrows are hard to see. I may have to go over them with a pencil or black thread. A classic wip but the sentiment is there:

Happy Thanksgiving

please stop annoying the cat

;-D
Hook On!
Cx

Happy Halloween ... Day

Hey a day late and a dollar short is my motto. Not just pretty words, after all.

As much as I love Halloween, I rather spaced on doing anything crafty - well except for this bracelet:

Hallo'een Bangle

That was fun. The creamy green beads reminded me of green cartoon Frankenstein creatures - neck bolts, zippery stitches and all. So the bracelet was always going to be panels of Halloween colors stitched together in crochet. The original vision failed miserably and I spared myself (and anyone else clinically sensitive to exposure from crochet disasters) the photography of it. Let's just say - wanted stitchy bustier style chains got weird bowed and buckled circle of Pringle-like crochet inclusions. Anyway, I found something I liked and the thing is fun to wear.

However, I couldn't let the day pass without a cat tribute, so true to form I spent the entire day making this orange-eyed kitty (been really into beads lately) and ... da da da dah! (phonetically spelled drumroll, please):

Orange-Eyed Kitty

And for some extra fun:

Great Pumpkin Kitty !

Although I don't know how sincere a corn syrup pumpkin patch can be...

:-)

Hoping y'all had the happiest of Halloweens!

Hook on!
C