Holy cow, I made the front page of Etsy! And promptly sold out of my pinecone hat, with demands for more. 80 new hearts within the past day. Craziness!

(You know, I really need to find another "signature" hat style that is both easier, quicker and cheaper to make and does not fill me with loathing by the time I'm done with it. Owl aviator hats, people! Fixate on those. Just a hint.)

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It started out as a warm-up exercise mostly, to get ready to mock-up some business cards, to remind myself how to manipulate type in Illustrator, to get all of that over-the-top Victorian design urge out of my system so that I can focus on what the client wants.

Then it, uh.

Grew tentacles and suckers and fangs and sort of devoured my evening like an Elder God getting up for a midnight snack—with frightening and careless ease.

Shameful, I know.



I haven't gotten ahold of a copy of The Cloud Spotter's Guide or its sequels yet, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they do not include a ticky-box-esque collector's card in the back pages. It's like a report card and merit badge system rolled into one! With faux machine engraving! And ticky boxes to check off to your heart's content!

(There's more fiddling to be done and probably room to expand the list, if you've got any peculiar weather phenomena suggestions that aren't on there already.)





Right, back to business cards. Yes. Don't go hatching schemes and ideas at me unless they are directly related to business cards. I mean that. spiralsheep, I am looking at you.

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You know, I don't really mind the twenty-two inches of snow, even if I have to shovel it. I don't mind the power outages or the flakey internet.* I don't particularly mind wrestling with a recalcitrant, half-frozen wood pile when the heat goes out, though my coat is now imparting decaying bark, groundhog nesting materials and general filth to everything it comes in contact with.

I object to snow lightning though.

Creepiest weather phenomena ever. So unexpected that it's just about impossible to document and makes you question your sanity.

(It is probably what I get for courting my Marlowe curse again. Yes, eastern seaboard, you can blame my speculations on seeing Doctor Faustus for last night. I accept that responsibility; I should have known better.)



And I feel I must agree with @HalfPintIngalls, in that when the groundhog doesn't see his shadow, it means he's blindly wandering the prairie in a blizzard and we're all going to die. This statement is utter truth.

---

* I owe several of you important emails. But I swear I am not avoiding you. Scout's honor.

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To short row or to not short row, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the garment to suffer the slings and arrows of a too-tight bindoff, or to take knitting needles against a sea of stitches and by slipping them, end them? To bind off, to decrease—no more; et cetera and so forth.

. . .

What? I haven't used the not-revenge-tragedies-again tag for months.

Oh all right, back to working on spatterdashes.

Edit: Did I just write down "kichener 78 stitches together"? I did. Hm, slings and arrows don't seem so bad in comparison . . .

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An even more baffling inclusion in the postal regulations than the glitter bees were. Postal regulations, on the whole, are a surprisingly good source for nonsequiteurs.

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Kids these days, do they send valentines in envelopes? I don't even know anymore. What is good? Advise me, internets!

(All of my other thought processes, that aren't devoted to commissions, are tied up in writing an effing thesis on The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, but I swear one of these days—real soon now—I will write a post that is more than a couple of sentences strung together. And I apologize. Regular service to resume . . . at some point.)

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If I haven't finished butchering this deer by midnight, send jacktellslies. And moral support. And maybe some whiskey for bribery purposes.

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I believe I had once stated that there is nothing quite so hilarious to behold as a grown man riding a tricycle.

I was wrong.
(But that is only because I'd never seen a grown man play an 18 inch harmonica before.)



Hilarity=achieved. Also, their jackets! And the combined amount of brilliantine in their hair would fell an ox at twenty paces!



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When attempting to resurrect an external device for your computer, such as a wireless keyboard, employ the following techniques:

• use fresh, "fancy" batteries
• sacrifice chicken
• play Rufus Wainwright's version of Hallelujah and proceed with the laying of hands



This is 100% tested and Von Strangehours approved.

Edit: Yes, I realize upon rereading my techniques that they sound rather smutty. But I stand by them. They may be more versatile than expected, is all.

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Enough of this gloom and doom, I say.

A lol emperor is imperative!



Emperor Norton/velocipede = OTP. I will fight you for even thinking of denying it. Believe this.

This entry was originally posted at http://chronographia.dreamwidth.org/13406.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Thank you all so much for your support. It means a lot.

I'll be working on commissions in the order that they appeared in my inbox, starting with hannah_nutwood and continuing on through. I'll be messaging individuals shortly about details of their projects.

This entry was originally posted at http://chronographia.dreamwidth.org/13054.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

And then. The other cockatiel died.

I'm almost ready for this winter to be done with, except that I'm afraid of how the rest of the year could be worse.



( things as what happened )

You can see an illo of them here, being sweetly cantankerous and wearing epaulettes.

This entry was originally posted at http://chronographia.dreamwidth.org/12688.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

I don't normally like to go into mundane matters here (particularly mundane, distressing matters), but I've hit a situation now where I feel that I do need to mention it.

I live with my folks and I work as an artist—it's not regular and it's not always gainful work, but they're ok with that and we've managed. My stepfather got laid off in October, the holidays happened, job prospects for him are slim until maybe February. Pennsylvania had a budget crisis for most of the year, so they've flat-out denied him unemployment; Arizona, where he had been contracted, thinks that a family can live off of $200 a week. My mother who runs a small fibre arts business, doesn't do shows this time of year because there aren't any (and, also, inventory needs to be done, which is a whole other ordeal).

We had the heat go out, a rapid succession of cars needing repair, and a cat who has a lump in his abdomen. There are suddenly half a dozen bills piling up, little and big.

We've been running the numbers and we'll lose our house probably some time in March if things don't improve.

. . .

So, if you have been thinking about buying a hat from me, or bespoke knitting, or want me to design you a website, or design your band's next album cover, or some other custom illustrations—tattoos even!—now would be a really wonderful time for you to do so. I'm not asking for your charity or donations; I want to provide a fair service for your currency. It's what I do.

*My email computer's keyboard ceased to function last week, so please direct all inquiries through either dreamwidth/livejournal, or to von dot strangehours at yahoo dot com. I'll be able to respond from the family laptop.

For more fibre arts goodness, please also take a look at my mother's handmade creations at her Etsy shop or her full business.




I should note that I am pursuing traditional methods of employment but that takes time. Time is what my family and I don't have a lot of. We are in a squeeze and it doesn't feel like there's much left to compress. So thanks. Thanks for listening, thanks if you want to tell someone about this, thanks for those of you who've given me advice. And especially thanks if I can call you one of my newest clients. I'd be happy to.

This entry was originally posted at http://chronographia.dreamwidth.org/12291.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Public radio story comment threads: engaging in internet duels in aggressively articulate, hyper-competitive intellectual way since 2001.

(To be honest, I'm thrilled that they beat me to the punch in pointing out that incredible glorification of orientalism does not make somebody an expert on Japan. I'm also thrilled that this piece didn't air with the rest of the program, which examines the very interesting [but somewhat unsettling to North American eyes] psychological underpinnings of modern Japanese society by talking to actual Japanese people.)

This entry was originally posted at http://chronographia.dreamwidth.org/12204.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Hoot! Hoot! The owls know which way the wind blows!

And, assuming that you are secure in your dignity and have a pair of goggles at the ready, you could wear an owl aviator hat and know too.



Specs: Lined with a wool-silk blend of roving, be-dreadlock'd ear tufts, plus earflaps to keep your own ears warm. There are a half-dozen mods I want to try, from grommeted leather laces between the back segment and the earflaps to tasseled chin ties. And maybe some smaller ear tufts, so that no one sails away inadvertently. Or is mistaken for a mogwai. That would be unfortunate.

(I'm also undecided about leaving the back segment triangular; I can see pigtails or dreads poking out adorably from the gaps, but what about shorter hair?)

Haven't posted it to Etsy yet, because I'm still figuring out how much of a departure it was from Ann Wood's inspiration. There are at least three points of difference, which is good enough for heraldry but, hm, maybe not enough for modern intellectual property laws. Perhaps future modifications will help.



As a side note, my little owls monitored all hatting activities from the tree while I made this prototype on Christmas eve. "Hoot hoot," they cheered me on.



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In which there are all manner of small and intricate shiny things.



In other news, drifting powder snow absolutely does not inspire anyone to frolic. You can't even build a decent fort out of it. Which is a shame, because it's all we've been getting for a week and a half, and continues to show no signs of stopping. Drifts in the valleys are between 7-14 inches, regular exposures about 5 inches deep.

This entry was originally posted at http://chronographia.dreamwidth.org/11691.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Somehow, I'm starting to feel like these holiday cards should come with their own theme music. Something cheerful with a concertina and a sousaphone and so forth. Hang on a minute, let me just queue up the Lemony Snicket soundtrack . . .



( larger )

( interior )

I've gotten complaints before—if you can call them complaints—that my little wrap-around postal cards pose a dilemma of which side to display. Well, I have sorted that one out for you. A VSH 2009 works best as a tableaux because . . . it's . . . a . . . great big table scene. Er. Yes.

To clarify: plasma coils made out of gingerbread, licorice whips, Necco wafers, sawed-off candy canes and jawbreakers, with spun sugar for voltage, a control box of gingerbread with toffee shingles, and lots of piped icing to hold it together, all on a snowy landscape of iced ginger cake with a gumdrop footpath. Please, my dear internet, please make this. And take pictures for me? You would make me happy.

Thank you to coloredvision, _inbetween_ and hannah_nutwood for your lovely cards! And I'm quite glad to know that my own cards got where they were going without the safety net of a return address, so thank you to everyone who let me know that they arrived!

At the risk of sounding redundant, ♥ post.

There are at least three more years' worth of ideas for Uncle Kestenbaum and his young relations to inflict Questionably Sane Science upon, so you have that to look forward to. Side note: please remind me to stop buying Edward Gorey holiday cards. I never use them.


Obligatory Filthy Lucre Bulletin: Like last year's cards, I've got some remaining which will go up on Etsy before the end of the month. (To be honest, I haven't even counted them yet. I need a little break.)

This entry was originally posted at http://chronographia.dreamwidth.org/11490.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

I am itching to write up a proper post, one with all sorts of charming little things that have made the past week bearable, or about post, or even about recent knitterly accomplishments. But as the ache sets in my muscles, my core temperature goes haywire and the world swims out of focus, I can only say this:

Bunnehs!



And that's pretty much where I'm at right now. Nuuur, onset of flu, nonstop snow falling from the sky, rabbits frolicking.

First Monday back in the normal world, now that the holidays are done.

And of course the heat's gone out.



Of course.

We've move the parrots into the only room with independent electrical heaters, which is ironically the coldest, most exposed to the weather room in the house, our stone-lined bathroom. The rest of us will be clinging to the fireplace and to our wool (including the cat).

By the time the repairman gets here tomorrow, it shouldn't get too far below freezing . . . ?

There is still no comparable weirdness to running foreign language knitting sites through Bablefish. For example:

• "Distinguishes true and false the hunchbacked yarn"
• "Poem of 288 three dimensional flower streak - 304 series sheep"
• "Encircles the circle Mahai wool"



True and false hunchbacked yarn may be the best thing I've heard of all year.