Smokey the Magnificent

This is Miles.

.

You will notice Miles is a catfish.

Miles mocks you with his eyes.

No, I jest. He likes you.

Miles don’t take no guff, though.

Miles fears no Commies.

Miles fears nothing.

Yet this tough exterior cradles the soul of a poet. Sometimes, for instance, Miles feels a pang of melancholy in the produce section, because he gave up brassicas. For Lent.

Miles is a delicate soul. Sometimes things that amuse coarser mortals shock him to the core.

Then he silently judges.

Take, for example, his large, tiny sister.

His sister has body art and drives a motorbike.

She is pretty hardcore.

Miles recoils from some of her lifestyle choices.

But he still likes her.

1. The snortlepig has invented a new word: strinky. After some investigation we discovered it refers to anything wrinkly, corrugated or ridged; raisins, for example, or one’s fingums upon emerging from the bathtub. Or Morgan Freeman.

Also strinky.

The pig being a minor, I give the Internet this word on her behalf. So next time you’re inspecting the roof of a shanty house or the texture of a fine corduroy… or Morgan Freeman… you can be all “Hmm. Strinky.”

2. Today Flatmate Man left a lone sausage festering in the frypan, so Helpdesk Man and I tied a ribbon round it and left it on his pillow. He was less appreciative than you’d think.

3. The weather is unseasonably dry. Helpdesk Man’s lips have gone all strinky.

4. I have just spent the better part of an hour trying to take a photo of Tiny Miles. It is harder than you would think. Firstly, my photography skills are non-existent and I was sitting in a room with the curtains drawn; secondly, I had to hold Tiny Miles up with the one hand to prevent him plummeting to his doom; and thirdly, every time I held the camera up he would cease his adorable smiles and stare at the camera with the fixed intentness of a magpie; and that was not attractive. Also, sad to say, he has inherited the family lack of photogenicitude. In real life he is toothsome and comely, a marvel of chins and cheeks and more tender fleshy bits than his anatomy strictly requires. In photos, though… well, he could be anyone’s pig. This was the best I could get:

5: Ten minutes ago.

SNORTLEPIG [while drawing at the table]: Mummy, I stomped on Miles before.

ME: Don’t stomp on Miles.

SNORTLEPIG: He liked it!

6. Helpdesk Man, the pigs and I are currently watching TNG. (The pig likes it; I was most impressed the other day when she saw the spaceship in Forbidden Planet and said “That’s like the Enterprise!” On a recent playdate, however, she found a toy saxophone and said “Is this a trumpet?” and I said “It’s a saxophone; you know, like Riker plays on Star Trek?” and the Other Mother found it hilarious, which shocked me a little, because when one is insulated in a cosy cloud of geeky friends it’s easy to forget how the other half lives. This is the friend who said, just prior to the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, “Ooh, I’m a huge Harry Potter fan, I’m so glad to meet someone else who likes it!”, and then it transpired she hadn’t even seen the last two movies. Lovely girl, but really.)

Anyhoo. I’m not generally a fan of digitally remastering old films (coughLucascough), but I think I have hit upon a method for making TNG distinctly more awesome. They need to go back in and add a character whose sole function is to follow a certain Acting Ensign and say “Shut up, Wesley” every time he speaks. I shall provide a few examples so that you can see how it would improve the show.

PICARD: There’s no greater challenge than the study of philosophy

WESLEY: But William James won’t be on my Starfleet exams.

SOMEONE: Shut up, Wesley.

Or

WESLEY: We thought we could do it. We thought we could do anything. We were wrong. And Josh died.

SOMEONE: Shut up, Wesley.

Or

WESLEY: Sir… you don’t know this. No one knows this. Because I’ve never told anyone. All of the things that I’ve worked for - school, my science projects, getting into the Academy… I’ve done it all because I want you to be proud of me.

SOMEONE: Shut up, Wesley.

Don’t you see how it improves the flow?

7. Panna cotta is my new big thing. I’ve just discovered it, courtesy of David Lebovitz, who is now practically my favourite food blogger even though he routinely annoys me. I’ve made vanilla bean, raspberry (with freeze-dried raspberry powder I bought at the food show - intriguing, but underwhelming in the clinch), double-layer coffee-caramel, and (last night) double-layer chocolate and coffee with a thin layer of chocolate ganache on top. I am now harboring a tentative plan to make rosewater-coconut cream panna cotta, but I doubt I actually will. I am hampered by what a nasty man on the internet once called my parochial upbringing. In this respect I am not unlike my mother, who recently in a fit of daring painted one of her bedroom walls aubergine, but is clearly both proud of and a little embarrassed by this act. We neither of us would survive in LA.

So, yesterday, someone dissed mah pig. I was at the supermarket with the snortlepig and the auxiliary pig, feeling vaguely skilly because I managed to wheel them around the supermarket with minimal tears and make my new credit card work on only the second try… actually the third, if you count having to push it in, not swipe it, but still… and as I loaded the goods into the boot, an old Chinese couple approached me with clipboards. At least, I assume they were Chinese - the clipboards were for a petition asking the Chinese government to stop persecuting Falun Gong practitioners, it being (according to the leaflet) a peaceful religion, with no post office and very few exports. This petition has been circulating around our fair city for approximately ten years - you can’t walk down to the Indian grocer in our suburb without being accosted by it, and again on the way back. I must have signed it about forty times. (And, side note, what’s with that anyway? Is an evil Communist regime really going to go “Oh, ten thousand people in New Zealand think we shouldn’t persecute a religious minority? Well, right-o then”? I mean, as I say, I sign the thing when asked; it seems like the pukkah thing to do; but it seems like there must be more effective methods of persuading governments. Nuclear methods, mebbe.)

Anyhoo, so I smiled benignly at the couple and said “I think I signed that one yesterday”, and the chap approached Miles in the trolley and began to make fond faces at him and chuck him under the chin, the way one does with pleasing infants. And then he said “How old?” and I said “He’s four weeks today”. Whereupon both petition-holders began laughing their heads off. There was a brief pause, and I said “Yes, he’s quite big” - because he is, and people do frequently make comments to that effect, which is fine. But they kept laughing and laughing. And after a moment it became Awkward, and eventually I gave them a smile of vague, frightened goodwill and hefted my laughably enormous baby into the car and drove off, thinking: they totally done just mocked my pig. And they were still laughing.

Suggestions? I mean, yes, he’s fairly sizeable, and possibly babies run smaller in China, but I wouldn’t have thought he was mirth-inducingly big. And is that really the way to raise support for Falun Gong?

Also, look at him. Who would mock such a pig? He’s squashy in the face and says “pla” when he sneezes.

In other news, the cat of Helpdesk Man’s dear friend just died. So, being a Woman and therefore full of Tact and Empathy, I made a commemorative mousse. It was less blurry in real life. Helpdesk Man’s dear friend didn’t have much to say about it, but he did eat the mousse.

RIP, Oogley.

Blow it all, I’m three and a half weeks postpartum and not up to my usual searing political commentary: so I shall amoose you all, Gentle Readers, with a series of quotations, melodies and other such media which I have recently found pleasing to the spirit.

DOMBEY sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great arm-chair by the bedside, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket bedstead, carefully disposed on a low settee immediately in front of the fire and close to it, as if his constitution were analogous to that of a muffin, and it was essential to toast him brown while he was very new.

That was Charles Dickens. This next one is Iron and Wine. It is a song I discovered from an online discussion about labour playlists, in which an individual - presumably one with a somewhat bleak outlook on parenthood - suggested it and everyone was all “Ooh, yus, that’s a nice song”. Which it is. Smashing, in fact. But would you really want to listen to it while giving birth? You decide.

Thirdly, I am very tempted to post some juicy quotes from Withnail and I, but some of the language is not quite the thing, and there are children present.

This one, for example. So I will instead merely link discreetly to IMDb’s Memorable Quotes, and those with unshockable dispositions can see for theyselfs. But don’t blame me.

[Some hours later]

Actually, I have some things to say after all.

1. The pig is learning tact. Her usual method, when faced with a nourishing dinner, is to eat three bites and then begin whining “I don’t want my dinner”; an attitude which wins her no friends. Last night, however, she switched tactics and said in a tone of polite regret, “Mummy, I love you and I’m very sorry, but I can’t finish my dinner”.

2. One hundred per cent of the friends I have thus far polled on the matter say that for $100,000, they would never eat peppermint or peppermint-flavoured foodstuffs again. I would scorn them for money-grubbing, but I’m sad to say I agree with them. I like peppermint, especially in the form of after-dinner mints and mint chocolate chip ice cream; but I could live without them. Chocolate-covered Turkish delights are a good substitute for after-dinner mints, anyway.

3. My knuckles grew during pregnancy. I tried to put my wedding rings back on the other day, and they wouldn’t go. And then I tried a week later, and they still wouldn’t go, and I made them, and it was a mistake. It’s mighty odd. My fingers don’t look swollen or indeed, in any way distinguishable from my pre-auxiliary-pig fingers; but there it is. The rings do not lie. Unless Helpdesk Man cunningly switched them during my pregnancy in order to mess with my postpartum head and cause me to off myself so he could collect the insurance and flee to Spain; which would be nasty, but I once knew a lady whose onetime husband would hide the rubbish bins just to mess with her head, so it just goes to show there are few depths to which humanity will not stoop. Flatmate Man consistently leaves numbers up on the microwave display so I can’t see the time without pressing “Stop/Reset”… for instance.

4. Still craving milk. I had two big glasses today and I yet I do not feel sated. Maybe that’s why my knuckles grew… calcium deposits. Anyway, it’s regrettably expensive, especially as Helpdesk Man has touchingly taken up the habit also. (Unless he’s just doing it to mock me, real subtle-like. See above. It’s not unpossible.)

5. I have to go now. I made Caesar salad and must eat it. This will be the second time today I have eaten poached eggs, although the first lot was in the context of toast. Did you know, you can poach two eggs at once? They separate beautifully after cooking, and it saves time. Once I get my Vitamin D levels back up and I’m brimming with confidence and self-esteem, I’ll try poaching three at a time. I should, like, televise it.

This is the pig, being three.

This is the birthday cake I made her.

This is what the pig would call a baby tortle.

The pig was about that size when she was born, although of course she looked more like this:

I, on the other hand, looked something like this.

Edward, not Bella. I may have had an even ghastlier pallor, but I cannot guarantee it. Anyway, that’s pretty much how I looked. I’d go into details, but my Hypnobabies protocol instructs me to let all such reminisces ping harmlessly off my Bubble of Peace and slink back into the void. Hypnobabies has no sense of fun sometimes.

Today I was seized with a wild, creative urge occasioned by being behind on the laundry. I made the snortlepig some trousies.

They have side seam pockets, the insertion of which taxed my tiny brain to the uttermost.

Also big knee-pockets, into which I am thinking of putting small pillows to cushion the knees of the snortlepig when she falls on them during walks. I’m not sure, though. It seems anti- the survival of the fittest. One would not wish to do the species a disservice by artificially advantaging a snortlepig who cannot retain control of her own two feet.

Just for larks, I also topstitched some pretend pockets on her rump. It’s doing little things like this that keep me topside of the Seine.

And because I am Thrifty and Virtuous, I made the legs very long and fully lined so they can be turned up and the pig can wear them till she’s, like, thirty. And don’t think she won’t.

The pig was also struck with the creative yen today. Know what gets ballpoint pen off an LCD monitor? Handsoap, hairspray and/or rubbing alcohol. Thank you, Google.

Sometimes, the sheer volume of the things I plan to make and sew overwhelms my brain like a load of laundry in a wardrobe, and makes my eyes twitch. This is a Bad Thing. Not a totally bad thing, as it allows me to think of myself as a crafty person brimming with ideas; but on the occasions I break through this happy bubble and realise I haven’t done anything more creative for a month than sweeping around a rectangle on the floor and pretending it was a rug, it makes me feel very small inside, and then I have to go eat carbs.

At the moment, my list of unfinished creative enterprises runs as follows (not in bullet-point form, as a) the length would be depressing and b) bullet points are too orderly to represent the reality of the situation): a small cushion made out of scraps from my wedding dress, a pink and green Irish chain quilt for the pig, another one in flannel for the pig in winter, both justifiably put on hold as she doesn’t have a bed of her own right now anyway; half a winter wardrobe of dove-grey, pink, beige and blue clothes for the pig, for which I bought fabrics, only it turns out she has plenty of clothes; the pig’s art station, a blackboard/whiteboard easel thing from the inlaws which I wish to make steampunky and awesome, because it doesn’t match the living room; a knee-length swooshy dress made with this awesomely manly tweed from the thrift store, whose very essence I wish to subvert by lining it with a dusky rose print and adding lace and doing cap sleeves and stuff; a grey more-than-a-circle skirt; a lace pettiskirt; lacy pantalettes, just below knee length; a pair of knitted stockings with little Xes all up the front, even though I suspect this will not look as good on me as on the Gibbous model; a pair of knitted stockings with horizontal blue and tannish stripes, sort of Alice in Wonderlandy, even though ditto; a pair of knitted lacy cream arm warmers that I’ve been knitting since the dawn of time; three unspecified baby gifts for recently ex-foetal pigs; typographical miniature cushions with ampersands and things on them for Helpdesk Man’s office, not that he’s holding his breath; a brown duster like Helpdesk Man’s current black one; a floor-length voluminous winter coat for me in smoky blue; a shorter one from the same pattern in some unexpected colour, so as to make me known in the boroughs as the Girl With the [undetermined but totally groovy] Colour Coat, which is on hold indefinitely as I can’t think of the right colour; a pair of natty lace wristlets, possibly done with very thin string in crochet, if I learn how; another pair of arm warmers with the leftovers from my pinstriped skirt, with dozens of little shroomy Victorian buttons down the side; a Mod Cloth-inspired grey dress with an asymmetrical cowly collar that makes me look like a scifi heroine; a demure grey pinny with tucks on the bodice, cunningly concealing invisible zips for breastfeeding access; a truly awesome autumn leaf quilt for the master bedroom, which is so ambitious I wisely refrained from buying the fabric and committing myself, but it still pesks my mind; a more doable but still not done bronze and blue bedspread cover, because Helpdesk Man doesn’t like the Laura Ashley one I got on sale three years ago, and it has ink on it; a cool Star Trek quilt I have vague and noble intentions to make for Helpdesk Man’s best friend’s couch, which is unseemly; somehow creatively ModPodgeing my old faux leather boots which are falling apart and showing their faux; a fairy-inspired dress with a ballet top and froofy skirt, for which I bought a lot of expensive fabrics and then panicked because they are sheers and I don’t do sheers, and they’re too expensive to mess up; a Grecian evening gown with a woven bodice which I want to make with some fabric someone gave me, only I don’t think my hips will stand the cut and I don’t have much occasion to wear evening gowns anyway, and Helpdesk Man wouldn’t like it because he objects to dresses that don’t have a defined waist; a pinstriped zipup dress based on a top I got from an op shop, but trying to copy the pattern gave me a headache; a top for the pig made out of this awesome dragonfly flannel I got last year, but she doesn’t need it and by the time she does it’ll be too small to make a whole top; a mini quilt I made ages ago to cover the changing table, which still needs to be bound but is a bit rubbish; a hand-sewn chevron quilt I started years ago, but I’ve gone off the colours; several underbust corsets, because I bought a bunch of spiral steel boning and things a while back, but am waiting on eyelets and inspiration and diligence, etc; new oven mitts; a new manly apron for Helpdesk Man, because his other one went missing; some summery, holidayish fifties-style bright dresses to wear to Disneyland next year to improve our festive moods, including a red polka-dot dress for the pig like Minnie Mouse wears; a smoky blue knitted hoodie with a frill around the bottom and a cabled tree on the back; a knitted grey dress with words from the end of The Return of the King chain-stitched all over it, in case I ever need to go to a book-signing; a harem pant/bellydance-inspired pair of pyjamas, although ovbiously not with dangly coins on them, but with breastfeeding access, but not until my current PJs wear out because of the environment, and they’re proving to be very long-lived; a fairy costume for my friend who’s a fairy at children’s parties, for no good reason except I looked at her costume she bought online and thought “Muahaha, I could totally make that”; a knitted top or two for Helpdesk Man; knitted knee-high socks for me and the pig that have demure wee bows at the top; a new Roman blind for the room of Flatmate Man, because the current one looks like a girly shower curtain; a stuffed pig for my nephew, which was supposed to be his Christmas present, but I got bored with the nose; a knitted top for the pig from a pattern I found online; a two-layer cutout top for the pig that I started making, but it wasn’t going well so I shelved it; and an assortment of hair accessories for myself to match the clothes I am planning to make.

You see the issue? I wouldn’t even swear that’s the lot, either. There’s a bolster cover lurking on my sewing shelf whose origins I can’t even remember… two, actually. Now, not all these ideas are unfinished in the sense that I actually started sewing them. Some of them are nearly done, some I have the fabric for but no notions, some just milled around in my head long enough for me to construct a precise plan. The point is, I spent a lot of mental energy on them. I spent weeks planning that autumn leaf quilt, and I knew at the time it was doomed, even as I said hopefully to myself “I could do a block a week, while I watched movies; it’d only take a few years”. I still have the sketches somewhere, probably.

In fact, the sobering thought occurs to me that if my next year’s New Year’s Resolution was “Finish up all unfinished or thought-out projects”, I couldn’t do it. Not a chance. Not in a year. Does that seem right to you?

Anyway, in the spirit of ignoring my own inadequacies, I thought I would show you pictures of the projects I have actually completed in recent history. Not the squab I finally finished for the bedroom window seat, because it’s a bit dubious and the light was all funny. Here’s a muskrat instead.

Pretty nifty, no?

Here’s a bowtie scarf I made.

This here’s m’ pig.

I made her dress.

She likes it.

I went all arty with the bodice, and Helpdesk Man laughed at me. He is basically a smegger.

He did, however, insist on me putting a bow at the back (see above re. defined waists, which is amoosing because if there’s one attribute the pig doesn’t have, it is a defined waist), and that helps.

Also, in true marvy craft blogger form, this dress was made out of an old bedsheet. Weep in awe.

Anyway. I also made her a hat from a Ruffles and Stuff tute, which is not that super but does in a pinch. She hates it, acourse. She’s always pulling off her hats. But I got her to cooperate while I was taking photos by getting her to say “communism”.

I also knitted her a wee scarf and handwarmers.

And I finished my pinstriped skirt.

That was a rubbish photo and it makes me faintly moop, so I will conclude with another muskrat.

Pretty nifty, no?

For the last seven days or so I have been suffering from what Helpdesk Man informs me is a low-grade flu. For all I know it’s very low-grade leprosy or homeopathic ebola, but I will take his word for it. It is not unto death, just enough to prevent me from being productive and bouncy. Helpdesk Man has been a trooper throughout - this morning he took off his T-shirt in bed so I could blow my nose on it. We were out of hankies. See above re productivity. Anyway, marriage is a wonderful institution.

Actually I haven’t been totally unproductive. I have been well enough to knit, a few feeble inches at a time, and during my Week of Moop I not only completed a bowtie scarf but started a pair of armpit-length fingerless gloves using a snazzy diagonal eyelets stitch, the success of which has impressed my lurgy-addled brain immensely.

Also, I went to a party. Not this week. Before. It was a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, and in a fit of brilliance two days before it I decided to go as the Queen of Hearts. So I bought an impressively vile red prom dress from the op shop and thought “I shall make an overskirt out of playing cards, for this will be Simple and Speedy”. It wasn’t, but thanks to a very long church AGM and the sweatshop skills of my tiny sisters, I got it done. The pig went as a single card, which actually was simple and speedy, but only because my little sisters did it themselves during said AGM.

Here do am be the pig, and myself twirling with Alice, the birthday girl.

K?

Last night my two small sisters came over while Helpdesk Man was out gadding. We watched The Truman Show, made a kind of faux pie thing with fruit salad in it and fettucine carbonara, researched the Great Exhibition and started making a kimono top for the snortlepig. Great larks.

I finished the top this morning. I’m not entirely sure about it, but it was very quick to make and covers her delicate wee neck and arms from the blazing sun better than my shirred tops do. And after all, if she ends up with a freckled decolletage before she even has a decolletage, her chances of making a profitable match are slim to nil. And who will support her during her bitter long years of barely-respectable old maiditude? Muggins here, that’s who. So I was thinking of doing another kimono top in a nice lineny colour, with slightly darkish red bias binding and some chunky appliqued flowers on stems. Thoughts?

We wandered over to the Gardens this afternoon for the shots.

I include this last not because it shows off the top, but because it is one of approximately three photos in existence in which the snortlepig and myself occupy the same frame. If I ever had to prove she was my daughter in a court of law, this could be an issue. In other respects it is probably a Good Thing, as I photograph about as well as Elijah Wood (no, really. Candid shots? Hoo boy. He does OK if you tart him up with lights and discreetly applied eye makeup, but slap him in a crowd full of fans and he tends to look geekier than they do. Which is endearing really, if anything, but presumably must be a trial to him as an actor. Interestingly, after I saw Sin City he has looked retroactively creepy in all the photos I took from the Return of the King premiere. Not that I look through them on a regular basis or anything; we were moving house. Still, though. And actually, my photography has improved somewhat in the intervening years… most of the premiere photos were of my thumb. And even my thumb is unphotogenic. It’s not the most Herculean of thumbs to start off with, me having dropped a ladder on it in my youth; but on camera you can practically see it squinting and holding its mouth funny. Quite fascinating. I wonder if it’s pathological.).

Other items of note:

1. I just discovered the best craft blog: Ruffles and Stuff. Lots of clothing recons, adult-to-toddler stuff in particular, and a lovely Victoriana twist to many of her projects which I can pretend is steampunk, not that she uses the term.

2. Helpdesk Man’s best friend mentioned the other day that he wanted to see our wedding video, and a cold chill ran down my back. Not just because of the oddness of a human voluntarily signing up to watch someone else’s wedding video - he was the best man and made a speech, so it sort of makes sense - but because in the three-years-in-November we’ve been married, I have been unable to bring myself to watch it. Is this common to brides, I wonder?

3. A flounce is like a ruffle, but instead of being gathered at the top which produces a bulky and textured top section, the flare is created by sewing the concave portion of a curved (as in gently U-shaped) piece of fabric to a straight piece of fabric, thus creating a smoother line. I learned that today. I learned what a peplum was the other day too, but I forget the finer points. Jackets have them flaring gently over the hips, sometimes. Not in my wardrobe, though.

4. As of the tail end of Season 6 Mulder’s hair has gone distressingly poofy. I hope this is a mere two-episode aberrance, not his new look. It’s practically a pompadour. Incidentally, does it not seem to you that hair in TV shows tends to get worse rather than better as the shows progress? Not universally - Friends comes to mind - but look at Cordy in Angel. Or Willow’s Season 7 look. Or Felicity, of course…

5. November starts tomorrow. NaNoWriMo. I feel distinctly uninspired.

I currently have 43 article titles jotted down for my NaNo challenge. Of course, now I have them I keep wanting to write the articles, which would be counterproductive, although still ultimately useful. This is the problem with challenges. Too often the artificial constructs suppress creativity or cause one to look for weaselly loopholes.

We’ve been sick again this week. Helpdesk Man took two days off, and I spent many hours languishing on the bed while the snortlepig pulled long strings of gore for her nose and then freaked out because her hands were “yucky!”. Sweet child, not too bright.

Well anyway, I think the sickness caused my brain leach out my ears because I can’t think of a thing worth blogging about. Saw 500 Days of Summer… made a tiny apple pie… saw the best episode of The X-Files yet (season 6, the one where the alien pretends to be a Black baseball player, and Scully and Mulder indulge in  witty tofu-related banter)… sent the pig to visit her grandparents, but she came home early in disgrace after tipping her bowl of dinner upside down… bought two wooden crates off TradeMe that were meant for storing jeans in (an oddly specific function, I felt) and planted punkins in ‘em… made cupcakes… you know. Nothing uber. Nothing that would sway a slightly conscientious gunman from shooting me in the head. Well, I washed my hair. No, that probably wouldn’t do it. Maybe I’m still suffering from residual sickness-related Moops?

Anyhoo. I did finish two tops for the snortlepig, so here they am! I apologise for the lousy photo quality, and by “apologise” I mean “blame Helpdesk Man”. Any time nice photos appear on this blog, they were generally taken by my small sister. Photography is one of those talents I admire from afar, marvelling with some fear at its technical aspects. Similarly, synchronised swimming.

I wasn’t too sure about this one when I made it - it has a few rows of shirring at the waist (if the pig had a waist) as well as the bust (ditto). I kinda like it on, though. It bulges pleasingly around her midriff.

The colour isn’t great in these photos, but I’m very fond of it - a deep chocolate brown, with pale pink for the straps and what the snortlepig calls the “dottos”. I shirred this top out of a remnant, which turned out to be a wee bit too narrow to wrap around the pig; so rather than stretching the shirring, I added a vaguely corset-laced affair on the back with some rather nice chocolate and pink double-sided ribbon. I’d hoped to find pink ribbon with dark chocolate dottos, but this works too.

My next project ought to be finishing the baby quilt, given that the baby in question is now a week old; but I have been smitten with the desire to make the snortlepig a bubble dress, so we will see. It’s odd; up until now I didn’t even like bubble dresses (or skirts, or tops), but I suspect the pig would look pleasing in one. Perhaps I am compensating for my own lack of fashion sense by wishing to dress the pig according to the latest trends, thus perpetuating the cycle of slavery to fast fashion and bondage to The Man while bypassing it myself?