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Minibreeze comes to visit … and learns Bow Ties and Fezes are cool

And now for some catching up on blog posts…albeit a year late.

This past summer we had a couple of house guests: Minibreeze and Edgar the Kitten — the stuffed avatar our twitter friends Mister Breeze and Boris Kitty, two really paw-some purr-sons as well as the humans behind them. [Yes, I used LOLcat speak, get over it.]

So what does a costumer do when hosting stuffies, she makes them costumes so the little guys can cosplay with their peeps!  Who doesn’t like The Doctor, especially Eleven?  So this is where I started.  I recreated the 11th Doctor’s iconic fashion accessories: his fez and bow tie.  Regretfully, I didn’t take any in process photos during the construction process, but I’ve got one of the finished product.

When I finished this and and “classic” Starfleet dress uniform, I safely packaged up Minibreeze and his new clothes, and his new companion, #FlatCassidy and off to the Post Office we went.  When the very nice postal lady asked is I had any liquids, hazardous materials, perishables, yadda, yadda, yadda, I replied only nope, only excessively cute scifi costumes for little black panfur beanie baby.  As she interest was now piqued, I flipped out my cell phone and showed her the picture.  She let out a sqee of delight.

I proudly present to you, #Minibreeze in all his Whovian cosplay finery.  You’ll agree, he is too cute not to sqee.

Bow ties are cool and so are fezzes
#Minibreez sez: Bow ties are cool and so are fezzes.
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Sci-Fi Pawty Prize donation – Wecanhas … scarf the fourth?

Doctor Who 11th Theme Music  For the full experience, click the link, you know you want to.

Being the proud and fur-covered mother of her four rescued felines, it is my privilege to help where and how I can.

So with that now being said, I asked myself … what does a Whovian period costumer do to incorporate her three of her four passions of Sci-fi, costuming and supporting animal rescue charities on a shoestring?  She hand-knits the Fourth Doctor’s iconic Scarf and donates it as a prize for Boris Kitty’s 5th Annual Sci-Fi Pawty. The SCIFpawty is a virtual Science Fiction Convention on Twitter. The hashtag #SCFIpawty The proceeds will once again benefit One By One Cat Rescue in Kutztown, PA a no-kill, non-profit organization.

So what does a person or more specifically a Whovian need to know about the scarf featured below?

  1. This scarf is by the book. As outlined in my blog post entitled  A Whovian’s …err “Delight”? — making the fourth Doctor’s Scarf I use the “Official BBC Enterprises Knitting pattern for the ‘Doctor Who’ Scarf,” which can be found here: http://www.androgums.org/scarf.html.
  2. Yes, it really is 12 feet long.
  3. The scarf is knit in 100% acrylic yarn, specifically:  Lion Brand Yarn’s “Vanna’s Choice.”  I love this yarn.  It is soft, has a good hand, has a wide color palette and best of all, is machine wash and dry.
  4. The colors are cannon.  I’ve used the color resources at Witty Little Knitter.  If anyone has done their homework, Tara Carstensen certainly has.  [Dudes, seriously. She took an OTT Light and a Pantone color book with her when she got the opportunity to have a hands on with the Shada scraf.]  Here is her template and list of yarns.
  5. Pictures [below] — we fussed over which phone took the best and most accurate representation of the colors.  The husband’s iPhone won.  We took pictures against both a black coat and a warm, dark brown coat to give you the best opportunities to see what it will look like before it arrives at your home.
  6. Hand-knitting — I hope in stating that this scarf has been hand-knit by yours truly would imply that there might be an irregularity or two in the knitting process.  There are three or four little “burps” in the stitches.  Now when you consider everything that Four put his scarf through, these are nothing; however, I did feel compelled to mention them.
  7. Cat Fur — the cats have made their own contribution to this project.  Thus, there is small small quantity of car fur that has unavoidably knitted into the scarf.
  8. The scarf has been washed in 7th Generation “Free & clear” it get out all of the awful sizing and the aforementioned cat fur as possible.

Doctor Who 4th Scarf - Black coat right side up Doctor Who 4th Scarf - Bown coat right side up

And as a sneak peak, here is our annual #scfipawty avatar: our 3 of 4, Obi-wan as his name sake.

May the #scfipawty force be with you.
May the #scfipawty force be with you.