Yes, I do have time on my hands today. Why do you ask?
Anyway.
If you’re looking for a good laugh today, you might want to check out this entry at The Dabbling Crafter about her adventures with a garden stepping stone kit.
My belly is sore from all the laughter.
(via What Not to Crochet)
I have no idea where the good people at What Not to Crochet found these… acts of footwear, but I definitely agree they were a monumentally bad idea. The yarn is acrylic, and the perpetrator assures us the leather soles are not animal cruelty since they come “from a cow that’s already dead.”
Well, at least there isn’t a cow walking around with a gaping wound shaped like two flip flop soles.
On the other hand, since the entire point of flip flops is to provide breezy footwear that slips on and off easily at will by the poolside, I don’t think crocheting acrylic shin guards and knee-high straps improves the usefulness of the item in question.
But maybe I’m wrong.
Opinions?
I think we can all agree there really are certain things that Simply Are Not Done. There’s a reason a lot of things fit into that category.
For instance, when I see a purse made out of a pair of men’s tightie whities, my first reaction is not ‘How Clever!’ but ‘How much do I have to drink before I forget I ever saw this?’
The one redeeming feature of this nightmarish offering by Etsy artist TWEEK’d is that the man panties are new and untouched by human rumpus.
Still, there’s no way I’m fishing around in there for my keys!
When I was a wee sprout of nine summers, I visited the White House. Yes, I took the tour with my family, and was duly impressed. We did not see the president, who, at that time, was Richard Nixon, for those keeping track.
I saw a lot of interesting and important things that summer afternoon, but the one that really stuck with me was the exhibit of Presidential China. In particular, the ambitious and wildly hideous dinnerware designed especially for Rutherford B. Hayes and his wife Lucy, who then didn’t even allow guests alcoholic spirits to help them deal with scenes like this on the dinner table:
Note that the fish on that platter is captured in a net and bleeding profusely.
That wasn’t even the worst piece. There was also a caribou in a snowstorm being taken down by a pack of wolves that still haunts my nightmares. Nixon to Obama, and I’m still shuddering.
I honestly thought I would never find another plate so utterly unappetizing again… until I saw this:
I know it’s not easy to see in this size, but there is a detail shot on the site. I just didn’t think you all needed quite that graphic a vision of a snake devouring a baby bird while a second baby bird begs for dinner.
Etsy artist hdmann has named his series “Dinnertime” but is unsure whether the pieces are food safe.
I cannot speak to food safety, but these are definitely not appetite safe.
Rooney Mara wore one in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
Lucy Lawless was fitted for one for Spartacus, but didn’t wear it in the end.
Heidi Klum wore a huge, terrifying one in Blow Dry.
Kate Winslet refused to wear one in The Reader.
Fifteenth century prostitutes wore them.
What potentially not safe for work fashion item am I talking about?
A lot of people collect Hollywood memorabilia, both for film and television. I’m not above it. I have autographed photos of most of the Buffy cast, a couple members of the Deep Space Nine crew, as well as a fabulous Mexican lobby card for The Rocky Horror Picture Show. A friend of ours even owns one of the pods from the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
So I get why someone would want an item that appeared on television. I personally would trample someone’s grandmother to get my greedy hands on an original Trek phaser.
But imagine my surprise when I discovered on Etsy a… rather outsized item that appeared in multiple episodes(!) of Charmed, and in the movie Raise Your Voice:
Yes, it’s a six foot tall fetish shoe, sculpted out of steel by artist Bruce Gray and painted in lipstick red automotive paint.
I think if I were looking for a piece of Hollywood to take home, this inspires me to want Grace Kelly’s fabulous nightgown, pegnoir, and slippers from Rear Window that all fit so neatly into a small briefcase. You’ve got the classy associations of Grace Kelly, Edith Head, and Alfred Hitchcock, some really fine design work, and something much, much easier to store.
I’m just saying.
On the other hand, if I happened to have $24,000 to spend on a piece of sculpture, and another $1,500 to spend on shipping, and I really wanted to make my neighbors unhappy… you never know. I might put it in my garden just to be obnoxious.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHH!!!!
Oh. Sorry. I forgot for a moment that this denizen of the ‘Pop Tab Forest’ (forsooth!) isn’t scary.
No, really, his creator assures us he isn’t:
He’s not really scary. He’s been to the dentist and has been fitted with braces!
Yeah, right. Pull the other one. It’s got bells on.
I notice there are no explanations given for the exposed ribs, though. Are they for her pleasure? Or are they just a rather disturbing piece of evidence that this monkey is created out of pop tabs from soda cans?
Anyway, if you find it less disturbing than I do, you can go to Etsy and buy the pattern for just $3.99. Oh, and you can you can totally make your money back. No, really, she says so:
Any item you make from one of my pattern you may sell!
You cannot sell or give the pattern away!
I have to say I’m not so certain you could sell the finished monkeys… but then I do own a collection of Ed Wood movies, so I really don’t have much wiggle room to talk, do I?
Don’t worry. His nose isn’t actually gone… so far as I know. But it does give one pause to realize someone came up with the idea of a nosewarmer, created a pattern, crocheted it, and actually got someone to pose wearing the darn thing.
Even more amazing? This photograph is number four in a series of six such images on display over at What Not to Crochet.
Then again, it could be worse. There’s also an article on hand crocheted banana hammocks that may not be safe for work, but is kind of mesmerizing.
I want to go on record as saying that the title up there? Is not my description of this amigurumi catnip human fetus cat toy. It is the creator’s description of it.
On the upside, the catnip is 100% organic.
Some days it just doesn’t pay to gnaw through the straps….
