Yay! I just got notice that I have been selected to participate in Plush You, the annual plush toy show held by Schmancy, the Seattle store of hipster cuddly things. I’m most honored to have the opportunity to show my toys alongside those of some amazing crafters and artists come this October.
Check out photos from last year’s Plush You here, or bone up on your plush awareness at Kristen’s Plush You blog.
Now, what to make, what to make….
This little knit was inspired by the plastic thing that floats in your toilet tank.
It’s not really an anteater, or an elephant. I don’t know what it is, so it has no name.
Would you like to give it a name? Would you like it to be the free pattern for June?
Mondays demand something cute.
So here is a seal hiding in a bowl of strawberries:
Hello seal!
And a silly seal hiding in a turtle tank:
Uh-oh…
Check back for a soon-to-be-announced special contest in which you can win some fun toys like these and more!
Vinyl Pulse tells us about a Devilrobots show opening this Saturday at the Showroom NYC! (It’s the little gallery next door to Toy Tokyo.)
Devilrobots are based in Tokyo and make fun characters in vinyl and plush. They’re maybe most known for Their To-Fu men and Maffy, who I believe is supposed to be a marshmallow-based creature.
Their show runs through next Thursday, the 24th. So let’s all go!
Warning! A gross photo accompanies this post.
My husband John was just about to describe to me a moving piano piece that he had rediscovered among his old music books. But first, he decided to make a big sweeping gesture with his arm. His arm hit a drinking glass that was poised on the edge of the kitchen counter, and he tried to grab the glass before it fell to the floor and shattered, but it had already shattered on the counter. It proceeded to slice his index finger. Blood and sticky apple juice flew all over the kitchen.
The doctor at the emergency room first said that he may not need any stitches. Or maybe two would do. Two became four, then somehow just one more, and it would be perfect.
We were all rather impressed with the results. Gruesome, for sure, but undeniably artful. If tattoos are now as “mainstream” as the media say they are, then we might be onto an emerging trend in body modification. But then again, maybe not.
Some fish are shaped like bread boxes. How silly!
A freshwater Puffer. Their little fins flap so quickly, they look like little bumblebees swarming around the tank. Boy do I want one of these!
An aptly named Boxfish.
A BABY Boxfish!
And the silliest of all is the Cowfish. He thinks he is a cow, but please don’t try to milk him.
After a long, slow process of random genetic mutations, the Evolving Punk pattern has at last made it to the Mochimochi Shop!
Various species of Evolving Punk have already been spotted, such as these smart coordinating Punks from Tezzcan.
Thank you for the great test, Tezzcan!
Click here to buy the pattern as a downloadable pdf.
I like to think of myself as a small-time nerd. Not any kind of specialized nerd, but a run-of-the-mill, uncoordinated socks-wearing, NPR-listening nerd.
One of my nerdier activities took place this past Saturday: the annual huge “Metropolitan Odyssey” scavenger hunt organized by the lab coat-wearing nerds at Metro Metro. Each year, 200 or so people gather somewhere in New York City to spend 6 1/2 hours counting the trash cans along a particular avenue, taking photos of themselves dancing with doormen, and looking for peculiar graffiti to copy on their answer sheet.
This year the big hunt took place all over the West Village, which is at once lovely and confusing and strange. Great fun for a scavenger hunt. Unfortunately, two members of our four-person team (my husband and I) set our alarm clock incorrectly and showed up late. Despite losing an hour of hunting, though, we felt we did fairly well.
My biggest personal triumph of the day was spotting a group of firefighters – they were just what I needed for task no. 13 (of 137 tasks): “Get a photo of a teammate defeating a uniformed firefighter in a game of rock-paper-scissors.”
An admittedly embarrassing picture, made worse by my closed eyes (and what’s with the bizarre palm-down rock, Mr. uniformed firefighter?), but I was beyond pleased with myself for being able to cross this one off the list.
Unfortunately, though we had brought a polaroid camera for quick photos, I was alone at that moment and I had to use my digital camera for this shot, even knowing that it would be nearly impossible to get this photo developed in the hour that we had left before our deadline. We ended up taking a very blurry polaroid of the screen of my digital camera. Who knows if they gave us the points for it or not – in any case, we didn’t win.
The real letdown, of course, is knowing that we have to wait another year to implement our new, uber-nerdy strategy for next year’s big hunt.
Update 5/21/07: We came in 9th! Not bad, considering our late start.