Baby Mobiles

  My original mobile was robot-themed, took over twenty hours, and did not turn out well. I was disappointed.

  WHY YOU TAKE SO LONG AND LOOK SO STUPID, ROBOT MOBILE?

  So, whales. Whales are cute. They're pretty flippin' awesome, too. And they make a heck of an easier mobile. So, I said to myself, "I make whale mobile, and it be awesome, or else." I imagine saying this to myself with an accent for some reason.

  So I cut out all the whale shapes, and then I was all, "You know what's cuter than whales?"

POLKA-DOT WHALES!

  Then I looked at them as I was about to stitch them up, and I was all, "You know what's cuter than polka-dot whales?"

  POLKA-DOT NARWHALS! 

   And, okay, yeah, the horn placement isn't quite right, but I prefer to think of narwhals as the whale equivalent of a unicorn. I seriously didn't know it was a real animal for the longest time. Because it's so cool, it should be mythical.

  You want to know how I did it? A lot of trial and error. My preferred method of craft, apparently. If you'll notice in the polka-dot whale picture, I accidentally put all the dots and eyes on the SAME SIDE of both whale sides. Meaning when I went to put them together, one side had all the stitches and knots and crap, and none of the polka-dot goodness. In my defense, I made this mistake sometime around 1 AM, but it still made me incredibly sad. I called McKay at work with my best Eeyore impersonation when I discovered my blunder the next morning.

  Anyhoo, want to see the finished product? Of course you do. Because it's narwhals, and they rock.

  The top level isn't quite level yet; that's a job for McKay. But other than that, I have to say this is one sweet mobile. But baby Lincoln deserves it--because he's going to be one flippin' awesome baby.

  Wanna know how long this labor of love took? When I was a child, my parents used to measure time in Wishbones. You remember Wishbone, right? This guy?

  Wishbone kicked Reading Rainbow's hiney in my mind. Anyway, on long car trips and such, I'd ask, "How much longer?" and Mom would say, "Twelve more Wishbones, Julia." Since each Wishbone was a half-hour, that meant there were six more hours of driving. 

   Well, my brother and sister-in-law recently gave me a very, very large VHS collection, including a considerable amount of Murder, She Wrote. Each tape of Murder, She Wrote includes two episodes, each one hour long. This is the number of tapes I went through while making the two mobiles:

   If baby Lincoln ever doubts my love, this picture is proof.