Flint Knits

In the Season 3 finale of RuPaul’s Drag Race, when contestant Raja was asked why she deserved to win the competition, she said:

I would love to leave a legacy for all those little boys who are teased, who are afraid, who don’t know how to express themselves creatively yet. And they don’t even know that they’re allowed to go against the grain … It’s okay to say “fuck you.” Do what you love to do, and express yourself thoroughly. I want to be an example of someone who is proud, someone who is accomplished, and someone who loves, loves what they do.

I might have some ambivalence about Raja, about Drag Race in general, and about Season 3 in particular, but OH MY GOD I sobbed like a tiny little baby when she made that speech. It’s far too rare that kids–and especially queer kids–get the message that being different might not be a bad thing. For me, that glimmer of hope came in 1993 when I saw RuPaul on television for the first time. I’m not exaggerating when I say that punk rock and RuPaul saved my life.

Cut to one cold February weekend, almost twenty years later, and I’m mainlining Season 2 of Drag Race while working on a handmade gift for my badass squirrel friend Heather. As I laughed, cried, and shouted at the screen (PANDOOORAAAA!!!), all of the glamour and all of the fame were lovingly, fiercely stitched into …

RuDoll

RuDoll posed for some glamour shots with noted fashion photographer Caro Sheridan,

giving us a glimpse at the Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent

it takes to be America’s Favorite Drag Superdoll.

We blasted Glamazon and Champion out Heather’s iphone, and RuDoll soon had us all boogying and gagging, as she served up Bratz-doll Realness and Barbie Eleganza.

RuDoll is crocheted with some super-shitty KnitPicks Palette yarn (seriously, that stuff is the worst),

shaped with armature wire and stuffed with polyester fiberfill.

I beat her beautiful mug with pearl cotton embroidery floss and a chenille needle.

RuDoll comes with two outfits and three wigs, all fully interchangeable.

With these tools, you can create such unique RuDoll looks as

GOLDA SHOWERS! 

and

PINK LEMONADE!

(Pink Lemonade inspired by this look from the Season 2 Drag Race episode “Country Queens.”)

And, if you’re lucky, you just might catch a peek at RuDoll untucking in the Interior Illusions Lounge!

Sassy, no?

But don’t be jealous of her boogie.

RuDoll has a plenty of love to go around.

For crafters and other interested parties, materials and construction details

are on my Ravelry project page.

 crochet rupaul doll

Me and my hotpants are headed off to Rhinebeck this weekend.

Which means that Halloween is creeping up on us.

Don’t fret! There’s still time to crochet a brain!

If you or a loved one needs a last-minute costume and would like to dress up as a mad scientist, zombie prey, The Brain, or some combination of the above, check out my “Brainy Maniac” pattern in the September-October issue of Crochet Today!

[ravelry link]

There are loads of other excellent costumes in the issue as well, several of which can be cranked out at the last minute.

ETA: You can still buy this issue at at yarnmarket.com and at yarncollection.com (thanks to Minty for the links!)

Braaaaaainz.

With apologies to my niece Claire, who is all that is perfect and joyful and full of goodness and light. And who, judging by this picture, has a healthy mistrust of acrylic fibers.

Enough! Enough with the babymaking, I say!

It must be a late twenties thing, because I swear to blog that all the straight ladies I know who didn’t get knocked up as teenagers (and even some of them who did) have had babies in the last 3 years. But now, for the first time in what seems like forever, I appear to have a brief and shining window of time where none of my friends is pregnant. And while I love my friends dearly, I will not miss the long conversations about hemorrhoids, or choosing the right doula, or the embarrassment of inconvenient breast leakage.

I have to admit, though, that I will miss knitting teeny tiny gifts for teeny tiny newborns. They’re so cute, and so satisfying, and so fast!

And so I give you the last of them. The last of the wee handmade infant duds.

pattern: Offset Wraplan, by Sara Morris [pdf]
yarn: Knitpicks Shine Sport, in “grass”
needles: US 3 and 5
[raveled]

pattern: none, just a hat and some tube socks with leaves attached.
(If folks want a tutorial, I’ll post one–let me know)
yarn: Knitpicks Shine Sport, in “leaf”
needles: US 4
[raveled]

And that’s it! The end of the teeny tiny knits for the foreseeable future.

But stay tuned for totally adorable toddler clothes, obvs. And I think Claire might need a collection of knitted cephalopods…

Um. Could you do me a solid and go check out my dress in this contest? If I win, I get a free trip to New York, and a $1000 shopping spree. And my dress is pretty sweet, right? Plus, it’s handmade, which should definitely count for something.

If you go vote, leave a comment on this post saying you did. When the contest thingy is over in June, I’ll draw names and send a $20 WoolGirl gift certificate to some lucky voter. And if I win ? I’ll draw TWO names!

	Vote On My Photo! handmade dress. with bees on it. by flintknits

Thank you!!

ETA: So, apparently you have to “join” kaboodle.com in order to vote. If you’re not into that (I’m not), you can just give an address that you’ve got designated for spammy webcrap. Or, you can do what clever Nikki did: sign up, vote, and cancel your account. Thanks again, guys! xo

EATA: Kristi (who seems like a totally swell gal) admonishes that Kaboodle is in fact NOT spammy webcrap. So before you decide whether or not to ‘join,’ please take a moment to investigate Kaboodle and all it does or does not have to offer! I’m off to do that myself …

Click “play” for optimum reading experience.

I can’t tell you why I created this craft project. I just woke up on Friday morning knowing that it had to happen. Nor can I explain why I’ve made a habit of investing stupid amounts of time and effort into what are essentially joke gifts. I cannot pin down the wacky impulse in my head that says “So-and-So is having a birthday? Obviously s/he needs a handmade gift that is neither useful nor desirable!”

What I can tell you is that, when I’m not knitting, I have a serious weakness for elaborate and useless crafts. There is no scrapbooking at my house. I will never sew an apron or weave a table runner. Instead, I might slave for 20 straight hours to create a Halloween costume that will only be worn once.

I can also tell you that I have very patient and good-humored friends, and that last night one of them was the recipient of an utterly ridiculous, totally useless birthday gift.

It’s a diorama.

Based on an episode of The X-Files called “Home.”

(Which is, along with being intensely creepy and unintentionally hilarious, one of the most fucked-up, pathologizing, mindlessly stereotypical representations you’ll see on TV of rural white people. I’m just saying.)

If you want the nuts-and-bolts details of how I made it, please read on. Otherwise, feel free to just pretend you never saw a thing, and I’ll post again soon with some pretty pictures of knitting.

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