Don't know about the rest of you but I've got a wild weekend planned. There are two days left to finish my diorama for the Kick Ass Oregon History Diorama contest , not even sure if it is fair for me to enter since I'm donating the prize, but I LOVE TO ENTER CRAFTY COMPETITIONS. Also, I'm pretty sure my diorama is going to win because it is f-ing brilliant. For those of you who didn't grow up in Oregon, some quick back story- in 1970 an 8 ton sperm whale washed up near Florence Oregon and died. At the time the beaches were under the jurisdiction of the Oregon Highway Patrol who were responsible for cleaning up the mess. Their obvious solution was to explode the whale with a half ton of TNT, as you might do with a wayward boulder that was blocking a country road. Like other poorly thought through plans that involve well- intentioned men facing a freakishly large aberration of nature while in the possession of explosives- mistakes were made, big ones. For my entry into the diorama competition I plan to capture that "Oh Shit" moment when workers, camera crews and innocent bystanders realize that this was a very bad idea. The full story is a great read and maybe the funniest thing I've yet to see on Wikipedia especially since it digresses into other instances of whales exploding including the self combusting kinds. KATU news covered the whole thing live and it really is worth five minutes of your day.
And while accurately depicting this with Star Wars action figures and Match Box cars should be the highlight of my weekend- I actually have bigger fish to fry... a few weeks back I sent in an application for a new reality TV competition show The Ultimate Craft Throwdown and OMG, OMG, OMG they like me! They like me enough to see what else I can do, what I can do big, and get in a video by Monday. With a little advance warning I could have recreated the whole whale exploding thing life size in felt, but I've got about 72 hours to come up with something interesting since most of my work is small and sinister.
Enter the 8' sock monkey, that's the plan anyway. I managed to score a couple dozen empty burlap coffee bags from Stumptown roasters and I'm stitching them together over a PVC frame my husband has built.
Some things I'm learning along the way. Burlap doesn't take spray paint well but latex house paint does the trick. The perfect tool for cutting PVC isn't a saw but a wire with plastic handles that looks just like a garrote from the old spy movies. 8' is big, really big all things considered and now that I've built the monkey I'm not sure if I can actually get him out of my house.
Other plans this weekend? Well, I've got a comic book class to teach this afternoon and putting the finishing touches on a dog jacket made from crochet beer cans. Living the dream baby, living the dream.