behind the scenes

So in between posts on life, creativity, and the pursuit of happiness, I thought i'd post some of the back-stories to my creations.

story number one, in which sandra finds alternate uses for skulls

so, to make a simple story complicated ... My friend has a friend who has a little girl and is pregnant with a little boy, and she (my friend) wanted a baby shower gift for her friend's baby. Actually for the little girl. Because baby gifts are never really for the baby, who wouldn't know a Gucci baby rattle from a dandelion, but might prefer the dandelion due to its edibility. Baby gifts are for the parents. And the older siblings, often on the brink of a pyschological meltdown from the epiphany that some scrunched-up crybaby is about to monopolize the Adults' Attention, gets left in the dust while the new ball of babyness gets loads of diapers, toys, clothes, and burp rags. So a plot was devised to care for big sister and Mommy. I was to crochet a baby boy doll to give to the girl to help ease her into the idea of having a baby brother. I loved the idea and was up for the challenge.

I found a pattern for a boy doll, changed up just about everything except the head, and ended up with an anorexic big-headed boy in footie pajamas. It was very disheartening. I posted pix of my failed experiment and put it away for a few days. I knew that something needed to be done soon, but wasn't sure what to do about it, and didn't really like it anymore, now that it was all skinny and ugly.

Soon enough, my friend asked about the progress of the doll, and I had to admit that I was starting off my crochet business on the wrong foot, what with disappointing people and not following through on orders in a timely way. L I learned all about that from my weekly etsy emails. Anyhow, she said the anorexic boy was cute and I should just send him. That kicked me into gear, because there was no way I wanted that droopy doll with a dangly head haunting my sales history forever. (admittedly, an overkill on the alliteration) I knew I could do better than that, and if the new adopted mommy of this boy was going to say that I had made him, I wanted to at least not be ashamed of him.

But I really didn’t want to remake the head. So I tried untying it.

When that didn’t work I just cut it off and gave up on the whole neck idea.

After remaking the body I tried to re-attach the head but it was very disproportionate.

So I undid it, stitch by stitch, still hoping to take it down to a reasonable size and just make it smaller from there on out. But the sewn on wig cap ruined that idea.

All of which is to explain how I ended up creating the skull bowl.

Determined to show the doll how disgusted I was with him, I decided that his upside down empty head looked quite reminiscent of a bowl, and if coated in plastic, would actually serve quite well for cereal.

(i would insert a clip here of the scene about eyeball soup from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom ... but i'm not quite sure that it's appropriate or funny, having never seen it myself ...)

Anyhow, eventually I redid another head, used other eyeballs, since the original child-proof eyeballs were irremovable, and attached it to the (neckless!) doll.

And in the end, I kinda like him. :)