Tiny crocheted animals

I've only been making amigurumi for a week or so, but I thought I'd post some pictures of what I've been up to.

This pig was the first complicated thing I tried. It's based on a pattern from Wire My Soul, though I'm constitutionally unable to simply follow a pattern. :D





This is the second time I've tried this elephant, and I think it's a very cute pattern by Lucy Ravenscar. I'll be making more of these, for sure:



And finally, here's my favourite thing of all: a freestyle bee that I designed myself. It's inspired by the previous/next bees on the KinokoFry web comic, but simplified and 3D. I can't even tell you how cute people are when they see this. They cannot resist picking it up, squeezing it and messing with the wings. Adorable.



And for educational purposes :D the base of the bee, where you can see the colours overlapping. Because amigurumi are made as spirals, there's always going to be a bit of a mess when swapping colours.

Comfortable to be labelled an atheist

Since I only update during even years, (guilty cough) here I am updating. Been reading/watching/learning a lot about atheism lately and I'm a believer! Or rather, a non-believer.

Many of my friends are roleplayers/fantasy readers/speculative fiction aficionados. People who get intrigued with exploring other worlds, and I've been thinking about faiths in other worlds, particularly how weird it would be if there were one or more gods who, you know, existed. What if prayers were answered. We've all imagined worlds like that, right? Even something as simple as D&D forces you to examine how freakish it would be if the gods actually took sides.

And wouldn't atheism be an interesting choice in a world where there were gods who made a difference? It would require an active denial of reality. An ability to see the world and say, yes, but I have *faith* in my own beliefs; a faith which transcends logic and facts.

And then I make a coffee and I'm glad I live in the real world, where atheism is rational, because there are no sky wizards here.

bringing it home

You know how cats love to bring dead birds, lizards and, in rare cases, socks to their humans? Well, Printy just brought in a big piece of bacon. And then ate it in front of me.

This raises some interesting questions: Why? Why me? Where the hell did she get it? (Our neighbours? A nearby bacon tree?) Is she going to throw it up? Near me?

What was she thinking? (My best guess: CAN HAS PIG MEATZ NAO?)

LOLPRINTY macros will be looked upon with great favour and amusement.

So, Prozac gives you vivid dreams and in the last week or so the nightmares have returned (why do they go? why can't they go back there?) and are so consistent that I've actually noticed a pattern. Warning, this is some freaky shit right here and possibly a window into my brain that you don't want to look through.

Phase One: something lovely happens to me, often involving cuddles and acceptance. This phase is usually very tactile and detailed. Some vaguely nasty undertones, but nothing I don't ignore using dream logic.

e.g. I discover a new creature kind of like a cat and there are two of them and they depend on me for everything and I love cats so it's all good. Sure they drink blood, but that's not really a problem, right?

Phase Two: Weird interlude. Something odd but pleasant enough happens which takes me out of the situation of phase one. Also tactile, but not so overwhelmingly lovely.

e.g. Go on a tour of a garden of alien plants. In the meantime, arrange for the first delivery of live food to the cat things, and they tear it to pieces as expected. They're also growing really fast, but nothing to worry about, right?

Phase Three: Something ghastly happens. Usually quite vague on the physical details (thank christ) but also the start of the really evil subversion/blame thing that my brain does to me in this dream.

e.g. Cat things dismember their first human victim leaving the bits in my room. It's someone I love and they're doing it because they need to (not their fault) and they wouldn't hurt me (because they love me).

Phase Four: Attempt to solve the problem which goes Very Badly.

e.g. Decide to destroy the cat things, so I capture one of them in a big glass jar (for maximum pathos) but the other one escapes. The one in the jar starts starving to death. I realise that they're silicon based lifeforms and that more of them are evolving/transforming from ahem, my anime figurines. (Wtf brain, thx for that.)

Phase Five: Realise the real solution is to destroy someone or something I love, so I do. This is fucking unrelentingly grim, sometimes involving me crying the whole time.

e.g. I have to burn all my anime figures but for some reason I can't admit to anyone that I've worked out which thing of mine they're transforming from, so instead I have to box up everything I own and throw it on to a fire, with the help of the people who don't understand why people keep getting killed by the still-at-large cat thing and are grieving for their loss.

Phase Six: no real resolution, just more self-blame. Wake up. Have a great day!

I can remember three versions of this sequence in detail and suspect that there are more. I'm hoping that writing this down will help to exorcise it, or at least improve my chances of realising that it's all a dream while I'm in there. Wish me luck, dear reader.

Here's a photo of some of my favourite people wearing things that I made for them: Simon's wearing the scarf that I already posted about. Dave's got a long black and grey scarf for keeping him warm on the walk to the bus. Fiona and Connor are wearing hats. Connor's wearing my first attempt at a beanie: tiny and grey and blue, complete with a pom-pom on top. Fiona's hat is white wool with a very funky greeny/gold brim. Jimbo's wearing the first of two black gloves made of mohair. These are super simple gloves basically made from a square of fabric sewn up one side with a hole for the thumb. They work really well.

I am making a pair with the same design for Emma-sensei, but hers have purple and black stripes and are long and hyperfunky.

While I was putting up photos, I thought I might also link to a photo of some woman holding Connor. He's very cute.

some kind of medal

I'm sure I deserve to have something nice happen to me, given that I just spent about four hours fiddling with bills, statements, tax certificates and other dreadfully important pieces of paper. Not just because it's a pain in the ass to file things, but because it's like a litany of things that require action and OMG my life is falling apart. Also worrying about money is never fun. Stats are fun!

Unopened envelopes as a percentage of total paperwork heap: 80.

Oldest unopened envelope found: March 2006.

Total number of unopened letters from Wonky-wah: three for me and one more addressed to Anne.

Number of companies who sent the you-missed-a-payment, you-missed-two-payments, we're-cancelling-your-service, your-service-has-been-cancelled letter sequences: four.

Number of companies who sent followup OMFG-you-owe-us-money letters: two. Insurance companies don't let you get into debt with them, apparently.

Total number of letters that I didn't open: NONE. Go team me, fight and do miracle. I also rang the tax office! And a buncha other people who needed to be called! Woot! (Reread the wiki page about Social Anxiety if you don't get why this is a big deal.)

Number of years of tax returns outstanding: eight. At least.

Number of years the tax dept is going to charge me $550 for not putting in a tax return: two. (I intend to make poor starving puppy faces at them until they cave and waive this. I can dream.)

Number of thousand dollars I owe in HECS (yes, STILL): 18. And a half.

Sigh. So this is all depressing and shit. Sigh. It represents (in a stark, map-is-the-territory sort of way) the past year and bit of my life.

And Xopher isn't well and I've started coughing today (damn you, Centrelink germs) so we're not going visit Dave and Fiona and Simon and Jimbo and Connor tonight, so *sadface*. No stitch and bitch for me. No presenting the scarf I made for Dave to him. Or the hat for Fiona. Or the gloves for Jimbo and Emma-sensei. No holding the baby while everyone else has dinner. *sob*.

My life is deeply tragical today. I might go watch some emo bands making dreadfully earnest and homoerotic declarations to cheer me up. Fauxmos! \o/

Finished another scarf, so I thought I'd show you. The last one was made of hand-painted mohair. The crocheting was therefore fairly boring, because the yarn itself was so interestingly textured and coloured. This one started out as a test of an old-fashioned stitch which can be made into three dimensional repeating bumps as you see here, using some old wool I had lying around. I decided I liked how it looked, so when I ran out of the green wool I added black to each end.

Yesterday I gave it to Simon for a belated Christmas present. He seemed quite pleased.

I've been doing quite a lot of crocheting lately, ably assisted by our little stitch and bitch group. It was originally something for Fiona and I to do on Tuesday nights while everyone else played RPGs, but Emma-sensei has also attended a session and it's fun -- unironic fun, even. For one thing, having crocheting to pay attention to takes some of the pressure off conversation, and for another, making things is neat.

I was going to make a big list of the tv and music that's making me happy lately, and then a contrasting list about medication and anxiety, but there's some links instead.