Maleficent

Every year at work we have a Halloween party, complete with costume and pumpkin carving contests. This year I was the defending champion of both, and I knew there was no way I could beat the awesomeness from last year. Really, how does it get any better than a Death Star pumpkin or a Yoshi costume (from Nintendo's Mario games). It just doesn't. Last year was so amazing that there was no beating it, but I still had to try, and this time Mary would be at work with me so my group costume would actually make sense. We decided to go with a Sleeping Beauty theme this year. I never liked that movie much when I was little, but Mary's favorite Disney princess is Aurora, Maleficent is an amazing villain, and it gave me an excuse to chase Mary around with my drop spindle while cursing her to die... how could I pass up an opportunity like that???

Now, this isn't something I'd normally put into writing for all the world to see, but I feel like it needs to be said. My mom is freaking amazing. She's made my Halloween costume just about every year and they're always brilliant. My co-workers are still in awe over her mad sewing skills from Yoshi. This year she pulled out all the stops. We were under a time crunch because life got in the way and then she got a cold - one of those really nasty headcolds with crappy sinus pressure and all you really want is a head transplant. I have no idea how she managed to keep sewing with all that going on, but she did it. And my costume was amazing. Don't believe me? Take a look for yourself:

Amazing doesn't even begin to cover it, right? Not only did she completely rock my costume, but I talked her into altering Mary's Princess Peach costume from last year to Aurora for this year. Originally the plan was to just change the skirt flap thing, add something for a stand-up collar, and add sleeves. Easy peasy, right? Mom took it like a million steps further. She completely redid the bodice and took poofyness out of the skirt. I swear this woman used magic. I have no idea how the hell she did what she did but the result was once again amazing.

We won Best Group Costumes at the contest at work. I probably don't need to point out that there weren't any groups competing, but that's not the point. We were the talk of the party. It was great. I didn't think Maleficent would ever beat Yoshi, but I think she did. She's evil and amazing and I loved being her for a day. This costume is definitely going to be a repeat in years to come. I love it!

Oh, and just to show off last year's awesomeness... Here I am as Yoshi. Might as well include the rest of the Mario gang while I'm at it. Mary is Princess Peach, her husband is Mario, and his best friend is Wario. I won "most creative" in the work contest last year, and we placed second place in a local pub's contest as a group. It was great!

Halloween is tied with Christmas for my favorite holiday. It's that one day out of the year I get to fully embrace my crafty geekyness and show it proudly for all the world to see, without coming off as a crazy person. Ok, they still look at me like I'm nuts, but there's usually a certain amount of respect there to because it seems like everyone, at some point in their lives, has worn a Halloween costume and/or carved a jack-o-lantern. This is different than anything yarn related because really, only knitters and crocheters seem to understand the siren call of a yarn store and the insanity behind spending *hours* knitting $20 socks that you could go buy at a department store for like $2. Granted, I've never knit a pair of socks, but I understand the desire to do so and hope to finish a pair one day. Anyway, the point is that the general public appreciates the hard work that goes into a home-made Halloween costume, especially one as awesome as the ones my mom has made for me through the years. They also appreciate the difference between whacking at a pumpkin with a dull knife and meticulously following a complicated pattern with itty bitty saws. They might still think it's crazy spending that much time on something that only gets used once in the year, but they also appreciate how much cooler it is than running to the local party store and picking up a costume that everyone else is wearing.


That being said, I still have a tendency to go overboard when it comes to pumpkins. Last year I carved 6 pumpkins. Seriously. And they were awesome. Death Star, Captain Jack Sparrow, Hannibal King, fireman, Monster, and a tiki. Knowing that it wasn't ever going to get better than the Death Star, and that I just didn't have time to carve a million of them again, I stuck with my favorite things from 2010. Embracing my Slytherin geekyness and my crocheted Mad Hatter. The Mad Hatter pumpkin was a stencil from zombiepumpkins.com and it has a projected shadow of the Cheshire Cat on the back.

My Slytherin crest pumpkin was a design I came up with based on images of the crest I was able to find online. I'd love to carve all the house crests one year, and I'm already working on the patterns. Might even post 'em on my blog if people are interested.

I hope everyone had a very happy Halloween! I'm already brainstorming for next year...

Massimo and Harold

The following post is what happens when I don't get enough sleep, consume entirely too much coffee, the phones at work are super slow, and all my work peeps that keep me entertained are at an off site meeting all freaking day. Now you can't say I didn't warn you...

As you may or may not know, I have a pygmy puff that resides atop my Tweety mug on my desk at work. His name is Massimo and you can see him chilling with Spock back in this post. Massimo keeps me company on days like to today when everyone is at an off-site meeting. Don't let the cute and fluffy look fool you though... he has sharp little teeth, is fiercely loyal, and has been known to attack mean-spirited people as they walk by my desk (of course he only attacks when he feels I'm being threatened).

Apparently Massimo needed a friend. After all, I'm only at work 40 hours per week and Massimo is by himself the rest of the time. He must get lonely, right? Tuesday evening I received a yarny-goodness package from my dear ravelry friend Vberry and inside was the world's cutest stuffed gorilla. Once I was done drooling over the amazing yarn I popped the gorilla into my purse so he could come to work with me on Wednesday. As soon as I got to work yesterday morning I introduced Massimo to the gorilla, but apparently Vberry had warned the gorilla about Massimo's ...not-so-friendly... side. I tried to reassure the gorilla that Massimo wouldn't hurt him, but the gorilla still seemed really nervous. In fact, he was so nervous that he wouldn't tell me his name.

While with me, the gorilla had only encountered me (a ginormous human-type-being), and a friendly pygmy puff that he believed to be evil. That must have been terrifying. Thinking that he might warm up to someone more his size and completely likable, I decided to introduce him to Ryan. Unfortunately I didn't consider the fact that Ryan might not be so keen on talking to a gorilla larger than him, so more awkwardness ensued.

Eventually it was time for me to go to lunch, and as much as I hated to leave the nameless gorilla at my desk, I thought he could use the space to settle in without me worrying about him. Turns out I was worrying for nothing. By time I got back he had climbed up on my travel mug - he just wanted a better view! He told me that his name was Harold and that he just wanted to see what I was working on. I showed him my plans for my Slytherin pumpkin and he told me that he thought it would look better with a badger... he's a Hufflepuff! We agreed to disagree and move on with life. I explained to him that Massimo is a Slytherpuff (loyal friend with an evil streak that I adore) and that over time I'm sure they would become good friends.

Harold seems to have survived the night, gave Massimo a second chance, and was still on my desk when I got to work this morning. He even helped me put together signs for the Halloween contest at work tomorrow. Such a good gorilla :-)

In other non-gorilla news, last night I hung out at Starbucks with Shirley and worked on my Rose's Mitts while drinking a yummy venti toffee mocha. Silly me, I forgot to say "decaf." Decaf is super important when ordering a huge coffee-type beverage at 7pm.

Once I was home (and practically bouncing off the walls) I realized that sleep certainly wasn't in my near future, so watching the Rocky Horror Glee Show and carving a pumpkin sounded like a good idea. RHGS was awesome and was amazingly ab-tastic. This means I was easily distracted. Easily distracted Schmutzy + pumpkin carving = bad idea. No, I didn't cut off my thumb or anything that tragic, but I did manage to screw up my pattern. It's not beyond repair and I think I've figured out how to fix it, but it was still frustrating. Oh well, I'll just have to take another crack at it tonight. I was planning on watching Amityville Horror or Boltneck this evening, but after the events of last night I'm thinking that a Ryan Reynolds movie while pumpkin carving could be even more distracting thus a bad idea. Maybe I really do learn from my mistakes!