Day of the Dead--outgoing

I'm behind on posting, I know, yet since I vowed "no excuses", there's not much point in offering excuses, is there?*

Anyhoo, for my outgoing Day of the Dead swap, I did most of my shopping in the first week of the eight-week swap, then most of the crafting in the last week. In between, I largely didn't think about it much. Still, it ended up being a fun swap, and I think my partner liked her goodies.

I was challenged a bit, because my partner didn't seem to like the classic Day of the Dead colors of yellow or red, nor stitch markers (and I love having Suzanne make stitch markers), nor project bags.** I decided to focus on a lime theme (that's Mexican, right?) instead.

I practiced my new-found crochet skills by making some skull coasters. You can tell they're "new-found" skills because one of the skulls has more teeth than the other. I decided the extra teeth fit in with the folk-art theme. I've gotten some coasters in swaps and ended up using them more than I thought I would.


I had really, really, really wanted to make the Yorick scarf , which a lot of people have needlefelted to make more Day of the Dead. My partner had asked for no wearables though. Like coasters, I've used swap headbands way more than I thought I would, so I hoped a headband didn't truly count as a wearable.

I headed to the Mexican groceries and flea markets over on the east side of the river and found some fun scores:

a postcard from a postcard show and a Santa Muerte*** candle for the ofrenda.

At the flea market I got a Mexican bandanna. A Bosnian gypsy woman tried to sell me some other stuff, but I had to explain to her that she did not fit my theme.

The Mexican grocery store provided some fun candies. I had hoped to find loteria cards, which they've had in the past but no luck. Last year, I schleped to about five different Mexican grocery stores, but in an effort to be more reasonable this year, I gave up after just one.

At Marshall's I found a tiny bottle of margarita mix, some chili-lime spice, and ...

this awesome plate.

I found the tattoos at the art museum and spotted the compact in a gift shop.

I bartered some yarn monkey time to Rachel for the sock yarn and roving (also in a lime color)


Finally, I threw in some skull confetti. In the past, I would have opened up the confetti pack and sprinkled it inside the box so that all the little skulls would scatter festively about when the package was opened.

I'm over that shit, thank god.
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*On one day I did write a scholarship nomination letter for a student. Makes me sound noble, doesn't it? For some reason, I'm trapped in the land of rhetorical questions today.

**All that lovely background fabric was intended to be a project bag. No worries--I'm sure I'll find some use for it.

**Santa Muerte is loco--seriously! There's a cult which may be related to drug dealers and some sort of belief that you can bind your lover to you by moistening a cord with his semen and tying it around a Santa Muerte candle.