D52 - Week 4 - Dumbo

Kevin's bit
Dumbo is one of those cartoons that I have a fondness for simply because I remember enjoying it as a youngin'. I don't remember exactly what I liked about it at the time. I suspect I was partial  because I was at that age where I rejected anything that might seem "girly," and Pinocchio and Dumbo were a couple of Disney movies that could be "boy" movies.
But does it really hold up to watch it as a grown-up?
One thing I like about it: it's short. After Fantasia, which passes the two-hour mark and especially thinking of certain newer blockbusters that near or even break three hours (I'm looking at you, Avatar), it's satisfying to watch an about-an-hour motion picture. Granted it's another full-length film that feels and plays like a short, but at least enough happens to justify it being longer than ten minutes. It is a bit jarring how rushed the wrap-up at the very end is, though.
Dumbo himself is an interesting titular character, in that not only does he not have any speaking lines at all, but he...doesn't really do anything himself to progress his own adventure. He pretty much does what everyone else leads him to do, without really making any decisions of his own. You care about him simply because he's a cute baby animal: would you have any reason to like him if he wasn't? Timothy is a more interesting character. I'm beginning to think it should've been about him.
As freaky and insane as the Pink Elephants on Parade sequence is, you've gotta admit: it sure ain't boring!
On the other hand, Dumbo's mother being confined in that dark trailer is one of the saddest Disney moments ever, trumping even a lot of death scenes.
 Favorite character: Timothy, especially when he first wakes up after his hangover,
Least necessary character: Freaky elephant body made up of elephant heads.
Overall: Though I happen to like it, I would find it hard to recommend it highly in general.

Tidbits:
-Was Timothy an actual part of the circus show or does he just wear the little ringmaster costume on his own accord?
-Timothy gets indignant at the crows for making fun of Dumbo, but weren't they really making fun of Timothy for suggesting the notion of Dumbo being able to fly?


Amanda's bit

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When I buy or borrow a DVD or other digital copy of a movie, I'm often as or more enthralled by the extra material.  I'm very interested in what the creators thought of their own work and what contemporary peers, colleagues, and historians have to say about it.

With Dumbo, I was downright shocked at how many people thought that this was the very best movie made during that era or at all.  Really?  I generally don't like to be negative, and I'm certainly not saying Dumbo was a bad movie, but the best?  The story was precious and original.  The music was catchy and clever.  The animation was as technically pristine as one would come to expect from the Disney studio.  Yet, after all of that, I can't bring myself to see the "masterpiece" claim that everyone in the commentaries and featurettes kept praising.

Favorite character: The lead Crow.  While folks currently claim that it's a racist portrayal, it's still a positive portrayal.  The crows as a group were like a jazz band egging each other on and the head Crow (did any of them even have names?) while having a bit of fun, did offer the best solution to the plot.
Least favorite character: Yeah, Elephant head thing was gross but for the sake of choosing someone else, I thought the ring leader was ridiculous.  Did he never allow any of his acts to rehearse?
Overall:  It's entertaining as well as a little bit horrifying at moments.   I'd rather watch this movie than 90's sitcom reruns.  You can make of that what you will.
Tidbits:
-One bottle of booze in a barrel full of water would be awfully diluted.  I can see Timothy getting drunk, but surely Jumbo Jr. had a big enough liver to hold his bubbly.
-I'm surprised at how many people know Timothy Q. Mouse's name considering the only time it was mentioned in the film was on a signed contract upside-down in cursive for a few moments on the cover of a magazine.

Amanda's creation:  We all need our own magic feather to help us believe in ourselves.  Mine is in the form of a funny yarn feather pen.  If you want to make your own, all you need is a bunch of lengths of yarn, a pen, and some spray adhesive.  Use spray adhesive on the pen working in small sections. Fold the lengths of yarn in half and catch the sticky pen in the loop.  Alternate the direction of the loop so that both ends of the feather are fairly even.  Trim the yarn ends into a feather shape and write with something fabulous.

Cleaning House

Many Americans are familiar with the idea of Spring Cleaning. Spring is a time for new growth and new ideas and fresh activity. However, New Year's is a time for resolution and it is my opinion that Spring Cleaning ought to have a New Year's sister cleaning as well.

While it's true that in the northern hemisphere, it's an inconvenient time to have a garage sale, it still is a convenient time to set up for a garage sale. Search out the tchotchkes and have them ready when the last flake finally melts.

For me, it's less about getting rid of junk (we live in a very small apartment after all so efficiency is the name of the game) but about finishing what we started and reorganizing what we have.

Among my 2012 goals is the resolution to finish or frog all my UnFinished Objects and Works In Progress. To start this, I really do need to figure out what they are, where they are, and where I stopped. Here's one:

I just started this project a few days ago. I'm quite positive I can finish this shawlette this month as it's going faster than I could have hoped for. I'm really thrilled to be working with this yarn from BlackSheep Dyeworks. It's amazingly soft, but it has so much stitch definition (clearly not evidenced by my whack photography skills) and I have yet to split the yarn even once. The pattern is Pleiades and is quite well written so far.

Now let's move on to, oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. This was supposed to be finished back in 2010. Can you really blame me though? Look at all those ends! It's a nightmare! What was I thinking? I hate weaving in ends and seaming. This one will be a chore, but even though the little girl is a little bit bigger, I still think it's large enough and will eventually be nice enough that she'll still get some joy from it.
And this? I don't even know WHAT it was originally supposed to be! It's pointy at one end, and it's clearly some sort of stuffed item. A mouse's head? A rotten turnip? An armadillo? I don't think it was originally supposed to be an acorn, but I think the shape and color fits, so that's what I intend to finish it into.
What other sad lonely little projects will I find while tidying up?

Day 348 and Growing

Sometimes I have an idea that's more of a concept than anything else. This is definitely one of those times.

If you're an organized person, this is a really fast 15 to 30 minute project. If you're disorganized this will send you into a wrath of frustration for weeks. Here's what I did. I made a slip knot and put it on a hook. I chained one stitch. I grabbed another yarn, made a slip knot, put it on the hook and made one chain stitch using both yarns. I grabbed another yarn and did the same with the third stitch. Et cetera Etc etera Et cetera. By the end I really don't know how many yarns I had all together. I kept having to switch to a larger hook far earlier than I was expecting. Barely a third of the way through I was already just using fingers only. Had I continued much farther, I expect I'd have been able to put my whole arm through the loops.

Most interesting to me is the way it looks like a real lock of braided hair (not in the color but in the texture. I've always noticed how a braid of hair got so small so very quickly and this scarf did basically the same thing but backwards.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've made a mess of my yarn stash and will be untangling for a few days. XP

Day 343 and Lazy

Did I fool you? I've done a woven scarf with scraps before, but no! This is not woven! I crocheted the whole thing. I could have crocheted a mesh and then woven each of the strands through, but I didn't think I had it in me today. I've done tapestry crochet before and if you aren't careful the yarn that is supposed to be hidden inside the stitch can show through. I decided I'd use the folly to my advantage. I thought I'd be lazy and cheat my way to a woven look and I'm not ashamed ;)

Scraps of heavily textured yarn for "weaving"
Size M hook
TLC Amore held double (Main color)(any worsted or light worsted will do)
Tapestry needle

Cut as many scraps as you plan on using head of time about 5.5 feet for each length. The number of strands you should use for each row can be any number you like, but I used enough strands that when held together, they approximated the width of the chain created with the main color yarn.

Throughout the pattern, for every single crochet stitch including the very first and very last of every row, catch the scrap yarns inside the stitch as follows: Insert hook, pull up a loop, position scraps against the main fabric (or chain on the bass row), reach OVER the scraps to catch your loop and finish the stitch. Once again, this method of catching the scraps happens on each and every single crochet stitch throughout the pattern.

Chain 101 using main color.
Base row: SC into second chain from hook. *Chain 2, skip 2 chain, SC into next chain* repeat to last chain, Sc in last chain.
All following rows: Chain 1, Turn. SC into first stitch *Chain 2, skip chain space, SC into next SC* repeat to last stitch, SC in final stitch.

Repeat the second row until the scarf is as wide as you'd like. I had less than half a skein of amore and still was able to make a 6 inch wide scarf. If you'd like a longer scarf, increase the beginning chain with any multiple of 3.

Cut your scraps ends evenly or artistically as you please. Cut the main color and sew in the loose ends of the main color.

Day 329 and Flagged

Have you ever seen those little post it brand arrow stickers? Apparently they are useful for college kids, politicians, and business executives to mark important pages in their documents.

As I was knitting with my jiffy needles (that's size 50 folks!) I had neglected to make a thick fabric as my yarn was not quite as heavy as it should have been. To give some more body to the finished fabric, I took some extra yarn in a different color and wove it through the large airy stitches. I let the tassels hang and those little flag markers are what came to mind.

Day 304 and Rugby

Here's one for the non-knitter, non-hookster that anyone can do. If you don't know how to do a basic three strand braid, just ask the first person you see with hair that passes the shoulders. It's like a global law that folks with long hair must know how to braid.

Anyway, I used 9 braids each with 6 strands. The strands were cut about 2 yards/meters long. Once I had all of them braided, I used all nine strands together as a 3 strand braid held multiple. I kept them as flat as possible, but if you really want it to hold the nice flat braid shape it would be a good idea to sew a straight line across every 4 or 5 inches. You'll need to sew across the very top and the very bottom anyway as the easiest way to secure the braid in place.

Day 292 and Complimentary

Now that it's getting to the end of the year, I sometimes worry that I'm overthinking things. I do so much that is so simple and an equal amount that is so original and unique. I think I glance over the middle ground quite a lot of the time.

So here we are, middle ground. I didn't overlook you hanging out at the center of things! A nice bit of fleece with some holes poked all around the edge for a very easy crochet and chain border. The holes were too far for 1 chain to be enough but too close for 2 chains to lay flat. I went with two and was pleasantly surprised at the faux picot it made. A quick consult with the color wheel gave me a bright but basic complimentary color match.

Day 286 and Shawl

I was thinking that I would make a shawl collar without the attached sweater or cardigan. As I was sewing, it occurred to me that a shawl collar is actually nothing more than a moebius forced to stay flat at the front! If you have a moebius that you're no longer enamored with, maybe a couple of quick stitches to create a sharp front is enough to give it another season of wearability!
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I don't think a pattern is necessary, but the basic recipe is to make a very short scarf. Wrap it around your neck and overlap the edges so they match perfectly. Sew the two ends together as well as about an inch up each side and call it a day.

Day 285 and Desperation

I happened to have this partially finished item in my stores. The original maker apparently was making a housecoat or a driving coat with this crazy thick fabric (4 strands worsted on size 15 needles-- my hands hurt just thinking about making a full sized project that way!) but for one reason or another never finished. I gathered the partially done bits at a garage sale for just a dollar and have been putting off frogging the whole thing out of plain laziness.

Well today I went to work at my normal time and after 2 hours was told to head home and get rest because I was needed for a different shift later in the day. Extremely inconveniently, I did as I was told wondering how I'd manage to finish a scarf for today when I remembered these pieces. The back panel was roughly rectangular and all I had to do was bind off. I did just that and sewed the two opposite corners together for a very snug kerchief scarf.

Day 281 and OnePiece

Here's a weird one with a very unique result!

I took a piece of fabric that's been in my stores forever and decided to put it to use. It's once thing to make yarn out of fabric strips, but in this case I didn't make strips. I only made slices in the fabric. Now because a column of knitting is only concerned with the other stitches in its own column, I was able to work stitches as if it were a run in the fabric or a dropped ladder. At the top, only the furthest left edge needs to be cut to secure the bind off in the normal way.

Since the edges are not stitches but a fabric edge, a very interesting ruffled effect is created. Because I used stockinette, it curls, but as you can see in the photo, this just allows the scarf to have two sides. On one side is the raggy knit look and on the other side is the ruffle.

Day 272 and the Paper Fan

I can't remember ever doing this outside of elementary school, but surely it's familiar to just about everyone. Remember back when you were very young and it was a very hot day and sitting in school was unbearable because most schools weren't air conditioned at the time. You took a piece of notebook paper, folded it like an accordion, and had yourself a little paper fan to wind away your sweat.

This is the basic method for this scarf. I had almost no fabric left of the fleece, but it was just long enough to be a scarf if there was something to secure it. I made an accordion fold and used my scissors to make a hole all the way through the layers and did the same thing at the other end. I then threaded some I cord through the holes and tied a little bow in front. It would be a good place to substitute ribbon or a shawl pin if it's on the longer side. It looks a little like a heavy scouts kerchief, doesn't it?

Day 262 and Yarn

I've been thinking about future goals. I'm only about one hundred away from the goal that I set at the beginning of the year and I really have been enjoying the accomplishment that comes with meeting goals. I think when I'm finished with the year and I've managed to complete my 365 scarves I will continue making deadlines for myself and will continue finding new techniques to flesh out my appreciation for fiber crafts.

Therefore sometime next year I want to learn to spin. I understand the concept of spinning. Twisting things in one direction and then allowing them to untwist around each other creates a stable ropelike structure that won't unravel. As early early practice for my spinning, I made the fringe in exactly this way. Because each of the yarns is so very thick, they have substance enough to hold themselves up giving this otherwise slender scarf a lot of body.

Day 260 and Party

This is the kind of thing that the life of the party wears. It's scrappy, it's loud, it's fluffy, it makes the wearer feel like they're that much more fun. It's also easy, fast, and perfect for when you have lots of yarn and no tools.

I took 17 different but coordinating bits of novelty and smooth yarns from my stash and held them all together as if they were one giant yarn. There was fur, glitter, barberpole, feather, ribbon, and who knows what else. I tried to focus my colors on black, pink, and rainbow just so it would look a little more deliberate. I used my fingers to make a slip knot and then reached into the slip knot and pulled through a loop. Reach into the new loop and pull out another loop. Keep doing this until you've got a fat ropey scarf as long as you want it to be, cut all those ends and pull them through. The tail on mine was substantial enough to call it a fringe all by itself!

Day 255 and Navaho

Navaho is a term used in spinning. When a single ply is chained through itself not unlike crochet in order to ply with itself without the use of another ply. Search Navaho plying on youtube for many many demonstrations. I only borrowed the idea here by making a very long chain and using the chain to knit quite large stitches. The result is a very think "yarn" that remains incredibly lightweight thanks to the large amount of empty space. Yet it retains the look of something much more solid. While chaining took some time to make enough yardage for a scarf, the large knitting more than makes up for the time usage and the weight makes it so comfortable that I highly recommend this method for last minute gift ideas!

Day 254 and Trinkets

This is very simply many many crochet chains stacked upon each other. At one spot in the cowl I anchored them with a lone single crochet stitch just to keep them all the same length. It's much the same as wearing a whole flurry of necklace chains but much more comfortable and without the pinch at the back of the neck when the links catch a lock of hair.

Day 247 and Confetti

This is a fantastic project to do with kids because there's no wrong way to do it and young creativity is so refreshing to watch as it happens!

Make yourself a plain jane scarf. I used double crochet the long way, but stockinette in knitting would be fine and single crochet would look nice too. It's important to use acrylic yarn because the color is added with sharpie markers! Permanent markers aren't always permanent on natural fibers, but they stick fast on most synthetics. The idea here is to just have at it! I grabbed a handful ad made spots everywhere, but if you or your little ones feel inclined to draw a picture, write a name, commemorate a date or anything at all, it will make your scarf all the more special. If you're really daring, this would be an excellent project to make many multiples of and have as a favor at a party (putting this much work in, I'd save it for the most special of parties such as Thanksgiving or Christmas).

Day 218 and Bedazzled

In the early 90s or possibly the late 80s I remember being given a bright pink box for a holiday or my birthday or something. Inside it was a pink thing that looked like a giant stapler and a swarm of tiny prickly pointy rhinestones. It was a Bedazzler. I was an extremely crafty girl, but for some reason, it never took and it's been sitting in my mother's crafting closet ever since.

Fastforward to today. I'm at a yard sale and see a small box filled with prickly rhinestones. At the same yard sale, there is purple tulle ribbon and a man who will sell them to me for a quarter each. Yes. Yes I will buy these things from you, sir. Your work room was purple and orange but it was time to redecorate? Thanks for sharing. Strange colors for a dude to have chosen.

ANYWAY! I didn't have the machine, but getting the little prongs to close wasn't really all that hard. A pair of pliers to start it and my thumb nail did the rest. If you're dazzling something sheer like I was, make sure to at least double the fabric. Those prongs are sharper than they seem and they'll tear the fabric if it's too delicate unless you give it some girth with extra layers. I just took a long piece of the tulle and folded it in half. By dazzling only one side and through both layers I had a scarf that was already folded in half for the jeweled end to slide through.

Day 212 and Free Wardrobe

I'm thrifty. I'm cheap. I'm frugal. No matter how you look at it, I don't much care for spending money. This scarf is a testament to the fact that sometimes you really CAN get something from nothing or at very least almost nothing.

This was made from one of those orange emergency blankets that wouldn't be of any use in an emergency because they're thin as sheets anyway. They are, however, ridiculously huge so the yardage is admirable and it's jersey so it doesn't fray or ravel.

Cut yourself a piece no shorter than 3 yards and no more slender than 16 inches.

Grab yourself a mannequin or a dress dummy or a willing friend and start tying. Be creative! Be Crazy! Be daring! Amaze yourself with what you come up with and when you've found something you like, take it apart and do it three or four more times so you'll be able to recreate it on yourself.

Granted, making a scarf bodice does take a certain kind of courage as not every woman is ready to show off her every curve and most of these bodices are on the provocative side. Go on. Take a chance. My favorite is this one and is tied as such:

Center your scarf across your abdomen. The left end should come up from behind your right shoulder and the right end should come up from behind your left shoulder so that they criss cross at the back. Tuck both ends into the portion lying across your abdomen and tighten and adjust until you feel comfortable. (This one happens to have the most coverage. Maybe that's why it's my favorite.)

Day 202 and Hot

It's hot today. So hot the two cheapskates that live in this apartment (us) actually turned on the air conditioning for a whole hour. Now most people would say that's nothing and will run the AC day in and day out, but we're a different breed of person. We're old fashioned, cheap, climate change believers, and stubborn. We'll put up with a LOT before we bend to something as trivial as a little sweat.

There's NO WAY anyone in their right mind would wear a scarf on a day as hot as this. Maybe this one. It's a piece of lace. One yard by eighteen inches with a cut in the center. I took some crochet thread and worked around the cut edge with single crochet stitches for a more finished look. It weighs nothing, it feels like nothing, but it's so darn pretty. Even on this ridiculously hot day, it would be useful for someone who would like a little more on than just a tank top.

Day 201 and X

Ah, embroidery. It takes so many forms and this form happens to be cross-stitch. Before I learned to knit, cross-stitching was my preferred form of domestic art. I'm now a yarn convert, but every now and then, it's fun and relaxing to visit my roots.

Here we have a very plain, very blank, very boring, very inexpensive scarf which can be found at any dollar store in America. Not much of a statement the way it is, but it does offer a very large canvas! Depending on the size of the design of you're cross-stitching, it might be prudent to purchase some waste canvas which is an even-weave fabric that can be used as your grid and then pulled away one thread at a time when the design is finished.

For this project, I picked out a couple of skull designs from Makoto's Cross-stitch Super Collection and since they're a little bit punk and a little bit funky, I went ahead and pictured the grid in my head. I had waste canvas on hand, but I rather like the slightly uneven look for these two motifs. Since the background fabric isn't on a grid of it's own, you could rotate each design in any direction at all if you so chose. Just remember that the thicker and denser your material, the sharper your needle needs to be. This scarf was a thin woven fleece and I got away with using a blunt embroidery needle. If I had been working on a herringbone fabric or through more than one layer, I would definitely have needed a sharp crewel needle and a thimble to save my little piggies.