I went looking for trio costumes for Hugs, Stumpy, and Cirrus, and this one leapt out to all of us. Hugs insisted on being bacon and Cirrus said it only made sense for her to be the tomato, which left Stumpy as lettuce. It might not have been his choice, but as they say, it’s not easy being green.

Only the Hug Monster can make a frying pan look like a hot tub.

On second thought, a ride in the salad spinner was not so good of an idea.

I thought this one was a bit morbid, but Cirrus insisted it was the only thing that made sense to do. She’s the artist!

The intersection of times with good natural light and times I had available for photos this week was just about empty, but (with an assist from my nice bright lights) I think we did okay. Happy Halloween!

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Once there were three little pigs whose mother could not afford their keep, so she sent them out into the world.

In looking for materials to build a home, the first pig met a man selling bales of straw. The second met a man selling bundles of sticks, and the third pig met a man selling loads of bricks. Each built a home and lived happily, for a time.

Eventually a wolf came to town and approached the first little pig’s house of straw. “Little pig, little pig, let me come in!” he called. “Not by the hairs of my chinny chin chin!” the pig called back. “Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in!”

And he did. The pig ran off to the house of wood, but the next day the wolf came calling there. “Little pig, little pig, let me come in!” he called. “Not by the hairs of my chinny chin chin!” the pig called back. “Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in!”

And he did. Both pigs ran off to the house of brick, where the wolf came calling the day after. “Little pig, little pig, let me come in!” he called. “Not by the hairs of my chinny chin chin!” the pig called back. “Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in!”

And he huffed, and he puffed, but he could not blow the house in. He called out again, “Could I come in, little pigs? My allergies are killing me out here. I’ll order a pizza!”

That sounded good to the little pigs, so they let the wolf in. Indoors he soon stopped huffing and puffing, and they all ate pizza.

In brief, the credits from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice are to Stumpy and Cirrus Monster, D.L. Ashliman, CopyCatFilms, and Dieter Steffman.

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The sorcerer’s apprentice was left alone with instructions to have the floor clean before the sorcerer’s return.

The sorcerer’s apprentice felt rather put upon to constantly be mopping the floor, and although he’d been explicitly instructed not to try magic, he decided to use a spell he’d seen the sorcerer use, and bring the broom to life to mop for him.

It worked! The broom began industriously mopping the floor.

…too industriously. Water began to collect. “Stop! Stop!” cried the sorcerer’s apprentice. He racked his brain for the magic word to change the broom back to an inanimate object, but it would not come to him.

Finally he resorted to an axe. He chopped the broom in half and was relieved to see the pieces fall to the floor.

His relief lasted but a moment, however, as the broken pieces sprang to life as two full brooms and began again to mop.

The apprentice had decided to run away and hide forever when the sorcerer appeared at the door. With one word the brooms were stopped. The apprentice turned to the sorcerer. “About all that water….”

D.L. Ashliman is a professor emeritus of the University of Pittsburgh with an extensive index of folktales and mythology. It was very helpful in picking stories to retell, and I recommend the page for casual reading as well.

CopyCatFilms generously provided a blank intertitle card to the interwebs, which I’ve used to begin and end this story.

Dieter Steffman designed the font I used on the title cards, Chelsea, and many other wonderful fonts available without charge.

Edit: There’s more of this nonsense now.

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They were Ashur and Ishtar, important ancient Assyrian deities. Something I read said they were husband and wife, but I never found that piece of trivia again so I suspect it was suspect.

I got advice from my friend Eleanore (“Fringe. Lots of fringe.”) and a page on Assyrian costumes. Getting an appropriate geometric pattern with (relatively) accurate colors required dyeing fabric (before and after shown above, though unfortunately not in the same lighting – that’s the same fringed trim in each shot). I scaled the shawl measurements in the Fashion Era link by 1/9, cut them from muslin, and then adjusted the proportions, since after all monsters are not humans.

Fortunately, monsters are fairly patient and easy-going, because we had some long fitting sessions. The tunics I had to design from scratch and they are far from historically accurate, but I had to adjust for the fact that humans are proportionally smaller front to back and also have necks that are quite a bit smaller front to back than their chests. The tunics have a front and back panel (really two in the back), with insets along the shoulders and down the sides under the arms. I was glad I made a muslin first because it was a wee bit snug.

And let’s not forget their accessories! This is unlikely to be the last time you see them in wigs.

The picture up top was taken during a long outing by the river. When they got home and out of costume they needed a good brushing, both for fluffiness and for removal of bits of the great outdoors. More photos will shortly be posted on Stumpy’s Facebook page.

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This monster was supposed to have been completed for Halloween… of 2011. However, I made a monster and when I brushed her, she got all stretched and floppy, her toes like the flippers of a walrus. That version was a dark orange. This version was of yarn much more similar to Stumpy (Stumpy is Full O’ Sheep [Stitch Nation for Red Heart]; this is Sheep(ish) by Vickie Howell [Stitch.Rock.Love. for Caron]) and brushed up nicely. Like the Hug Monster did, she will spend some time anonymous, until her name is revealed to me.

Anonymous Light Blue Monster would like to announce the opening of the ReveDreams.com store! Several patterns you’ve seen the results of are there. We’ll survey them in tomorrow’s regular post. I aim to add more patterns steadily through the year, as well as continuing to tweak the look of the store pages.

The post Blogiversary announcement appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

This Thanksgiving, in addition to friends, family, health, and financial security, I am thankful for…

MONSTERS!!!

I am also thankful for a little time off. Work has been hectic and intruding greatly into the rest of my life, so this weekend will be good for getting caught up at home and produce some things to show you in the coming days. Have a lovely holiday!

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The stripes project was inspired by my tendency to take partially-cooked oatmeal to work some mornings. What does one do with it? I have some Pyrex bowls with lids, but I don’t want to tip them sideways to put into my regular bag, nor put the warm bowl in my cold lunchbag. Hence, I had an excuse to craft a made-to-order bag. I had been wanting to try out a spiral tutorial I dug out of the Internet Archive ages ago, so in three autumn colors, that became the bottom of the bag. Then I continued the spiral theme around the sides, and put the whole thing together and added handles with an accent color.

The spiral started out kind of awkward, at least the way I interpreted the directions. It smoothed out, though, and I like the way it looks a few rows out from the center. On the sides, I tried to do the same thing in terms of stitch height, with one round per color of sc, one of hdc, and one of dc, then back to hdc and sc. The finished product is slightly larger than necessary but fits the bowl reasonably well.

Now for the monster! He is gangly and gibbon-like.

I put magnets in his hands with the intention that he’d be a kind of emo monster and hug his own knees, but when he was finished he revealed that instead of being emo, he’s a monster with no sense of personal space.

Stumpy is not totally certain about this development.

The monster was freehanded, though I made some notes so the arms and legs would match. His body is basically a bowling pin, and the arms and legs have some bend to them via increases and decreases. I believe for the arms the first row was just sc across the chain, but after that I made 2 sc in each of the 2 centermost sc for two rows, then decreased twice (in the four centermost sc) for two rows, and maybe sc’d across once more before sc’ing the strip into a tube. For the legs I made 2 sc in the ends of each row and 3 sc in the centermost sc, in every row including the first one, for three rows, before doing the reverse for three rows (I used Lily Chin’s slip stitch-like decrease to decrease by three: pull up a loop in each of the next three stitches, and pull the last of those loops through the previous 2 and the one that was on the hook to begin with) and finally, again, sc’ing the strip into a tube. I stuffed him lightly, sewed the outer end of each limb closed (with the magnets in the ends of his arms), and sewed the other open end to his body. Though the yarn was already fluffy, I pulled up the nap to extra-fluffify him with a pet brush.

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I added some silver to the mix, in the form of a hatband and trim on the bridal veil. Crocheting with metallic floss gets a big thumbs down – the strands would either prefer to have nothing to do with each other, or they catch on each other. However, I am very happy with how it came out! (except perhaps for Mr. Pea’s mouth.)

Stumpy got his one-day license for this.

Smile for the camera!

You always need a silly picture.

I made them grinning and winking because I wanted joy. Long ago I cut a 50th anniversary announcement out of the paper – they had used a wedding picture for the announcement, and happiness shines out of it.

I cut it out as a reminder that unless I feel the way they look, I shouldn’t walk down the aisle. Also, they’re just darn cute.

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He turned out more complicated than I expected, so a pattern pdf will follow later, once I have time to put it together. Handwritten, the pattern is three and a half pages long! Not because it’s overly difficult; at least some of the length is due to separate left and right arm patterns, so they will be mirror images.

Rock star

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