I fell in love with Angelina's son Max when I read this post.  Not only is he the weird and wonderful son I would have loved to have had, I see a little bit of myself in him.  So, when Angelina mentioned in passing that Max would probably love a headless bunny egg in his Easter basket, I immediately promised he'd have one.

Last night I met Renee Rigdon, one of the writers of the AntiCraft book.  She had a book signing in West Philly, so I drove over to say "hi."

The AntiCraft has an awesome contest:  submit your pattern for a Vlad the Impaler hat with earflaps and bobbles in knit or crochet before March 31st.  I'm so totally not going to have time to do this, but I wish I did!  If you're interested at all, please enter this contest. :)

Yesterday my copy of the Anticraft book showed up.  I had been able to resist buying a copy (yay me!), although I'd walked to the book store several times to 'visit' it.  I would whisper to the other people in the bookstore, "I'm in a book."  Well, not so they could hear.  Now I can be creepy in the privacy of my own home.

Why couldn't this book have come out in the 90s!?  I would have loved it so much.  I would have cried when I found it ... probably literally.  I was kooky girl living in San Francisco that crocheted, and I felt utterly alone.  This book would have been like a divine light.  Plus, those were the days when I would have actually had a use for a duct tape corset or the time to complete a graffiti cross-stitch scene.

I started reading it before bed, cuddled in my blankets.  The book starts with the Antifesto, which I love.  I remember the first time I read it and I thought to myself, "These are my people!"  I felt especially touched by the last line, "We want you to help us carry this along, which makes it political - a stand against the current trends in society to sanitize grief, drug sadness, hide obscenities, stigmatize sex, and take everything much too seriously."

I feel very strongly about each of those things.  VERY STRONGLY.  I just wrote a rant about the whole thing, from which you will be spared.  Suffice it to say, I prefer to live in a reality whose shiny happy rainbows are *balanced* with grimy underbelly grit.  I like knowing the truth, even when I don't like the truth itself.

Back to the book ... The art direction is amazing!  I love the destroyed layout and Victorian clip art.  The book is definitely Punk-Goth-Industrial.  The photos are wonderful and so kick-assed-ly styled.  All three of my projects have OWLS in the photos!  So awesome!  I really had no idea what the book would look like, and I was so relieved that it looks so cool.

I love all their little asides in the book, too.  One page is full of nerdy, misanthropic, three-dollar words like, a recent favorite of mine, schadenfreude.  I'm always careful to say it "shod-en ..." (like clod)  because my Midwestern inclination is to say "shade-n ..."  Kind of like I used to say flan like plan.

Well, I'm totally proud of myself.  It's so funny, when I first found out they accepted my projects, I was worried about telling people because I didn't believe it would actually happen.  Then, once I realized it was a go, I was worried about telling people because the book might suck.  So, I just want to point out to myself, "Hey look!  Something actually worked out well and didn't implode or explode or do any ploding of any kind.  This whole experience rocked!"  Thanks self, I really needed to hear that right about now.

Hey, see that?  That's my name in a book.

I was really excited that a crochet project of mine was included in the Anticraft  book.  I designed this lined crochet tote bag so it would be a canvas on which you could add your own personalized design.  I submitted two designs for the book.

The "I [Skull] Trouble Tote" is actually mentioned in the promotional blurb, which totally set me on fire when I noticed.  I included a chart for the whole alphabet with this design so that the saying could be personalized,  Everyone has something important to say on their tote, right? :)

The second design is the Apothecary Tote.  I was inspired by Victorian apothecary medicine bottles.  When I was adding this design to the tote using my graph paper chart, I miscounted the spaces and had to redo it 4 or 5 times.  It was driving me nuts!  But I really loved how it turned out.


While writing up the crochet instructions for the tote, I realized how hard it is to actually explain in words how I do the seamless crochet technique.  Supplementing this pattern is a lot of the reason I put my seamless crochet tutorial on the web.

I also plan on posting a tutorial showing how I hand sew my linings into my crochet bags.  Several people have asked about it, and it would be a good supplement for the book, as well.

I'm compelled to write tutorials because I HATE it when I get the instructions for a project and they blithely say things like "sew the lining into the tote."  HOW?!  It seriously drives me nuts when they give no hint or clue about the techniques they actually used to do it.  I don't want to be a part of THAT problem. :)

I originally designed the Bad Eggs around Easter of 2006.  I did a set of four in black with embroidered designs.  At the time, I thought subversive Easter eggs (traditionally-colored eggs with non-traditional imagery) would be hilarious, and I got my chance to make some when they were accepted  for the Anticraft  book.

Look at that squirting arterial blood!  I can't tell you how much I love that decapitated bunny.  It warms my heart.  I couldn't be happier about how it turned out.  The white-on-white embroidery outlining his leg doesn't photograph well, but it looks good in person.  His tail is a bunch of floss loops making a 3-D puff.

Ahhhh ... a cute chick with a taste for eyes.  Chirp!  The eyes filling the basket are made with a tiny sequin and a black seed bead ... and embroidered eyelashes.  I do realize that if a chick was digging the eyeballs out of peoples' heads and collecting them in a basket that they wouldn't still have eyelashes, but I think that makes it all the more creepy. :)  It totally oogs me out that the chick is holding an eye by the optic nerve.

The other two eggs in the Bad Eggs set are based on the original designs.  One is embroidered with 360° flames and the other has evil eyes on each side in alternating warm and cool colors.

Certainly, you could make non-snarky Easter eggs with the pattern ... but why would you? ;)

Amazon.com is already shipping the Anticraft book!!!  I don't have my free copy yet (and no one can tell me if it's even on its way).  I'm freaking out because I can't see the book and the pictures of my projects.  Is it professional looking?  Is it a nice book?  Are the instructions for my projects accurate? Ack!

The rude helper-monkey at Borders informed me that it they don't get copies until the 22nd, so I won't be able to go sneak a visit until then.  I'm "this close" to ordering one on Amazon, but I'm pretending that I have patience.

Deep breath.

Without further ado, here is project one of the three projects I have in the book:

You probably recognize the Three Owls, the first original stuffies I designed.  For Anticraft I made them a little scarier.  Thank goodness for the felt and floss stash.  Look at all those greys!

This project might seem a little anticlimactic, which is why I started with it.  I love my sweet little owls, though, and I think their goth/industrial incarnation is cute in a menacing kind of way.

The red beady eyes on the little one make me think of Amityville Horror, which I read in one night when I was in the third or forth grade.  I wasn't quite old enough to realize "based on a true story" didn't mean it was true.  It scared the hell out of me. In that book, the demon, which appears as a pig sometimes, also appears as a set of red glowing eyes.  I swear, the red dots on my alarm clock still creep me out a little because of that book.