Put down the soldering iron and close up that bin of iron ore, your days of hand-forging lovely tabletop accessories are over. This magical form of fiber manipulation is called “wrought iron crochet.”  Now even you can give ordinary cotton this patented super-cotton strength to hold hefty items like cigarettes and butter cookies. Take that, smelting process! Who needs you?

Bionic hair? Check. Snazzy neckerchief? Check. Rib-crushing, diaphragm-constricting leather belt for my sleek new body-hugging cardigan? Ch . . . ~gasp~ . . . can’t . . . inhale . . . ~thud~

Welcome to my brand new swingin’ pad! It’s much roomier, and there’s lots to see! But first, what’s all this about a book?!

It’s true, the Museum of Kitschy Stitches has been captured on paper in a book subtitled “A Gallery of Notorious Knits”. And there’s no lack of crochet in there, either. It’s being published by Quirk Books and should be out mid-late summer of this year. You’re going to love it! The people I worked with were amazing and understood my goofy vision immediately. I’ll spill more details in the coming days.

I’m really excited and it’s been killing me not to say anything. But that’s a large part of the reason I’ve been not such a good blogger. It’s really time-consuming to make a book. It’s also why you haven’t seen an edition of the MOKS in a while. From now on, I’ll be posting every day during the week (I’m giving myself weekends off). I’m hoping to strike a balance between the way it used to be, with a continuing theme for exhibits, and also tossing in random items from out in left field. We’ll see how it goes.

I’ve also created a new feature called Tin Can Alley. My brother was kind enough to do some modeling for me, as you’ll soon see. I created the gallery because almost every time I check my stats, someone has found me by searching for “beer can hat” or “aluminum can crochet“. I’m not exactly sure why, but I figured I’d give the people what they wanted. More patterns are on the way!

The page of links is still being put together, so it’s definitely a work-in-progress. I also added a gallery of finished objects for your perusal. There’s a space where you can sign up to receive updates on the book and website. It’s not going to be an announcement of every post, it will just allow me to get the occasional word out about book details, fun additions to the website and upcoming contests for people who want to be in the know. There’s also a link on each post so you can easily email them to your friends who are bored at work! Neat!

We’ll be tweaking the site when we notice little things here and there, but I’m over the moon with the way it came out. The site was done by a great designer named Cynthia Malaran. She totally rocked the house! I tried to do it myself a while ago and it was a total nightmare. I bow to her.

Enjoy! MOKS posts will start tomorrow!

Santa just stopped by for a brewskie after his shift and he seems to think you’ve all been very good this year. He was a little tipsy, so it could just be that you were very sneaky. Regardless, he left some treats for everyone who requested something in the comments Friday, plus a few more goodies!

For jenifleur, it’s her heart’s desire. A Super Star Barbie, complete with stage set! She can control Barbie’s Super Diva hissy fits by remote control – now with vase-throwing action! Articulated wrist lets Barbie toss back cocktails, pop pills and gesticulate wildly at Ken’s ridiculous assertions that maybe she has a problem.

And once she gets out of rehab, Barbie can get a nice, normal, regular job selling airline tickets. How sad for Barbie. One minute, she’s on top of the world, and the next thing you know, the producers of the Surreal Life won’t even return her calls.

For Melissa (who’s blogname I don’t know because Blogger won’t tell me) and Dani, we’ve got some Barbie Fashion Plates. It’s like a year’s worth of Museum of Kitschy Stitches entries in one box! Fantastic! I always wanted these, too, but never got them. I spent a lot of time that year making impressions of coins and stuff with the tin-foil wrapping of my Ring Dings. ~sigh~

Could it be possible that Imbrium’s mother read the Sears catalog to her in utero? That’s where she was in 1978, and yet she yearned for a little robot friend named Alphie in the 80’s. It’s not entirely impossible that Alphie has been transmitting messages to her since before she was even born. Imbrium, do you feel unnatural urges to do simple math and sing the same five songs over and over for no reason?

Stephanie, please accept out apologies, you’re going to have to go commando. Sears had no Underoos to offer, but I agree, they did look “Fun to Wear!” Being naked under your clothes is fun, too. But now you can stretch to your heart’s content with Stretch Armstrong and his new “companion”, the Stretch Serpent. He appears to be a product of the unholy union between a Sleestack and a bookworm who’s been reading too much in the dark, but he and Stretch are in love and that’s all that matters.

Eerrrrm, here Marlena, it’s the Barbie Dream House you wanted! And look, there’s a car and a boat and some cool disco clothes! Enjoy, I gotta go! What’s that? It says her name is Tuesday Taylor? No, I think that’s just a typo, it’s Barbie. Huh? No, really, I think they just spelled it in French or something. She’s the same doll. Stop crying, Marlena, she’s just as good. Look, she’s even two-timing with Ken! Don’t pout, your face will freeze that way and then you’ll be sorry.

Here you go, Dani. Mousetrap. I think it’s great that you never actually had this game. You still have fond memories of its potential to actually be fun. If you had gotten it, you’d be just as disillusioned as the rest of us. By the time you unpack the whole thing and figure out how to play, you’ll have already lost at least two of the pieces, the marble will have rolled away and the cat will have taken off with the rubber band. But it’s ok, you would have never figured out just what the hell that rubber band was for anyway. I recommend just keeping your fantasies intact and never open the box.

Amy! Here is your very own set of twin Babies Alive! Can you believe that wacky mix-up at the fertility clinic?! Batteries still aren’t included, but just pillage them from every remote control and flashlight in the house, it’ll be fine. Word to the wise, hide Baby Alive’s food from your brother. If he’s anything like mine, he will eat it all before realizing that it doesn’t actually taste good and in fact, isn’t even really edible. He’ll get sick and it’ll be sort of funny for a while, but then you’ll have to find something else for Baby Alive to eat and you’ll resort to real food, which will eventually go bad and Baby Alive will then start to rot from the inside. Trust me, it ends badly for everyone involved. Boys ruin everything.

DebR, is there any possibility you could get some kind of body reduction surgery to get you to 1/8 scale? Because this is the best that Sears could do . . .

Your future is here, Beth. Quit your job and get started on your new career with this set of make-up heads, just for you! The first one has bendable hair that really holds a curl! The second one is the beautiful and talented Farrah Faucet! I mean, it’s actually Farrah Faucet. She really needed the work and agreed to sit still for as long as she could. Just be careful when you’re doing her lipstick, she gets a little twitchy and has a tendency to bite.

Hey itgirl, next time someone tells you to sit and spin, tell them you’ll be glad too! Just make sure you have a bucket or something.

Easy Bake Oven anyone? Oh, EVERYone wants one! Well, tough luck. You’re all getting the knock-off version. Sure, you’re still cooking with a light bulb, but what fun is a toy called the “Fun Time Oven”? Sounds a little suspicious to me. I mean, if it was so fun, they wouldn’t have to put it in the name, am I right? But we’ll throw in a snow cone machine (sorry, not the Snoopy Snow Cone machine, just the plain boring snowman one) and a Micky Mouse gumball bank. Find your own damned pennies, kid.

Ooh, look what we have here! Matchbox cars for Elisa! It’s time for you to be spoiled rotten, just like your cousins. And if it makes you feel better, I hear those Star Wars PJs are really itchy.

Melanie, like I said, word on the street is that those pajamas will put ants in your pants. Santa wanted you to have one of these instead. He said something about wanting to see you try to get up and out of it once you’d been sitting there for a while.

And for everyone else who missed out on the toys from 1978, here are some of my personal favorites:

This is a puppet that you can disguise. I always wanted one. My cousin had one and it scared the crap out of me. I still wanted one. Any toy that comes with a prosthetic nose and a kid-sized cigar is mighty fine by me.

The Fisher Price Farmhouse is a classic. It was everywhere and everyone had one. I am still convinced to this day that the noise at the beginning of Prince’s “When Doves Cry” is the noise this toy makes when you open the barn door.

Best. Toy. Ever. There was a time in this country when you could get a die-cast metal truck with intricate moving parts capable of cutting, scraping, and pinching tiny fingers at every turn. Tonka trucks were indestructible. They could withstand every last bit of punishment a kid could dish out. No amount of stomping, dropping, or bleeding on them could do any harm. This was the workhorse of the toy world. Dear, sweet Tonka. How we miss your sharp metal corners and your amazing moving parts, you made us stronger as long as you didn’t kill us.

You want a handheld video game? Take yer pick. Some blipped, some bleeped, but rest assured, they all blinked.

I have no recollection of these things. I don’t know Thing One about them. But the look on my husband’s face when he saw this page in the catalog was too cute for words. Go ahead. Find a guy in his mid-thirties and show this to him. He’ll know what they are and most likely, he’ll make a great face.

Ok, Santa’s bag is empty, there’s wrapping paper everywhere and I’m covered in bows. Another successful Christmas! Hope you had fun because now I’ve got the shakes. I can feel an eBay bender coming on and it ain’t gonna be pretty. Someone, somewhere must have a set of original Fashion Plates, right? Right?

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. . . or opening old Christmas wounds. Either way.

Inspired by jenifleur in yesterday’s comments (she demands a Super Star Barbie). Did you have a favorite toy around 1978? Or did you beg and beg and beg for something, but never actually get it because your parents were mean and didn’t love you? Tell me what it was (or describe it as best you can) and I’ll see if Santa can find it in the Wish Book for you!

Now, girls, go put on your pretty dresses.

Boys, get your nice new slacks and tops on.

Mommy is going to wear her polyester caftan because once the holiday eating starts, it’s not going to stop until she’s asked to leave for making the rest of the family uncomfortable.

And Daddy is going to wear his new Mix-n-Match suit by Garanimals. I hope he wears the hippo jacket with the marmoset vest and hyena tie. Daddy’s such a stud.

Later on, we’ll change into our new family sleepwear set! The force is with us this year, kids.

Ready? It’s off to grandma and grandpa’s. We all know what grandpa is going to be wearing, right? That crazy, comfort-seeking, leisure-living old coot.

I wonder what grandma got everyone this year.
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