Whoops!

The last few weeks have positively flown by, I don't even know how. First two people moved out of the house, and I cleaned a lot. Then one person moved in and I cleaned some more. But cleaning is not all I've accomplished, a fact proven by how not clean my room already is. Oh well! On with the show.

Remember this?

Well, it soon turned into this:

It's a mask. A very specific mask, for my día de los muertos -inspired wrestling persona. I constructed it using my face and a well-fitting, cheap carnival mask to model it on. 

First I crocheted two identical circles for the eyes, leaving them thinner next to the nose and the holes slightly bigger than desired.

Second I made a heart motif and kept crocheting around it for a bit. When the heart motif met the eyes (I roughly fitted it both on my face and the other mask every now and then) I sewed all three together.

Third I filled in the nose area a bit, sewed the eyes together and then filled the gap above the nose.

Fourth I filled in both sides of the forehead to form a continuous shape with the eyes and the heart motif.

Fifth I crocheted one full round of sc around the entire mask and one round of shells, leaving a gap around the nose.

Finally I filled the eye holes with shells as well to give it that día de los muertos -look.

It has to stay on during some pretty spectacular moves, so I decided to try my hands on starching.

I first looked into starching with sugar, but decided that I didn't really want to risk it while sweating profusely. Instead I used your every-day craft glue mixed with water in equal parts, the carnival mask and some cling film.

First I lined the inside of the carnival mask with cling film.

Then I submerged the crocheted mask in the glue/water mix and squeezed all the extra starch out.

 Next I spread the wet mask onto the carnival mask, careful to align the eyes and straighten all the edge shells.

Then I let it dry, stretching and adjusting it later when it was less damp and easier to manipulate. You could probably use more glue to achieve a crispier result, but I chose to repeat the starching process to make the mask harder. The more repeats, the harder the results I would imagine.

When the mask had completely dried I zigzagged an elastic band on it, and another one on the first band itself to go over the top of my head. I used these instructions to make two black and two red ribbon roses, which I then sewed on the second elastic band. The length of the ribbon is not very important, it just affects the size of the flower.

Aaand then I took some promo pics. Complete with make-up. They actually came out surprisingly well despite my very limited experience with both make-up and posing for a camera.

Oooh yeah, myspace-a-licious! How I wish my camera had a self timer.

The dress I'm wearing in the picture above is that black lace number from Stockholm.

It has had something extra done recently, too. I took red sequins, an embroidery frame and some black tulle, sketched an anatomical heart on a piece of paper and proceeded to sew the sequins on the tulle in the shape of a heart.

Bling!

Then I pinned and zigzagged it on the front of the dress, trimming the tulle around the stitches. It's very thin so it hardly shows.

And that's only the beginning. Stay tuned!

I also started (and frogged and started and frogged and started) and finished something summery just in time for all the cold and rain. For some reason I had so much trouble with this little waistcoat. Could have been my insistence to knit mostly in the middle of the night, who would have thought! Now it's done, however, and I'm very pleased with it. Worn in the picture over my flowery summer dress with a very generous amount of cleavage, which was actually the inspiration to make it in the first place.

I've also got something in the works out of that mystery!cotton yarn that's been flying around the world. It's already driving me nuts, but will be fucking gorgeous when I finish it. Behold the echo flower shawl:

Impressive, isn't it?

Last night I also whipped together a little owl pillow/pouch. It just needs its drawstring legs and face and it's done.

You see? I have not been slacking even though posting about it has been on hiatus. And this does not include all the work stuff, mainly hats. They will have to be in another post because wrestling practice and figuring out what to knit over the weekend at a friend's cabin awaits.