What is your spaghetti policy here?

Before- Bird Law

I don't have too much to say about the before on this one. This original is pretty boring. Muted colors. Vague text. Also this makes two religious originals in as many posts, so I'm going to tread lightly to hopefully not increase my potential lightning strike odds. The thing I will say about this original  is that I've been sitting on this one for a while. There were a couple of directions I was thinking of taking the text, but generally nothing seemed to be quippy enough to fit in the allotted space. Finally the text dawned on me.

After- Bird Law

If you aren't familiar with the TV show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia this mod is probably very confusing for you. Actually this blog is probably pretty confusing for you. IASIP is a national treasure at this point. Let's add it to the list of prerequisites for liking this site. (So far the list is: 1) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and now 2) IASIP.) Now that we've established the importance of IASIP let us reflect on the mod.  It seems nothing these days is governed by reason so perhaps we should revert/evolve to Bird Law. Bird Law isn't the kind of law we have right now, but it's the kind of law we need. And if you're going to go with Bird Law, you should probably use the best god damn bird lawyer in the world.

Here at Cross Stitching for Cross People we run this ship pretty lean. Just me, the Maladjusted One, and my esteemed artistic director, the Fluffy One. We had some artistic differences on how the photos for this post would go. In the end, we took it in my direction, but I thought I would share one of the outtakes with all of my many (three-ish?) readers.

I'm sure you've all assumed it, but here's confirmation that yes most of the projects here have touched a butt. Speaking of inappropriate touching, my next post.... it's gonna be huuuuuuuge. Believe me. The lying media doesn't want you to know it's going to be one of the greatest- no the greatest mod of all time.

Hold onto your butts!

Bible verse counted cross stitch kits. It's in the top 5 categories of stuff I see when I go a huntin' for new material. The other 4 categories are, in no particular order: 

• Christmas crap
• commemorative gift crap
•  lighthouse/nautical crap
• extremely large portraits of dragons/wolves/horses/etc

Bible verse counted cross stitch kits seem pretty ideal for my nefarious purposes as they usually have a pretty big empty spot to work with but unfortunately they have one setback. The WTF?!? test. (previously covered here) It's not so much that they fail the test, but that the answers tend to be things like: "people or deities that would like to see me smited/smote." My hair is frizzy enough as it is- I don't need an intentional lightning strike.

So that's the tale of why I have stayed away from the Bible verse kits... until now. I finally planned one so perfect that even God himself would at least pin it to a secret board. 

Behold!

What makes this one so special? The possibility for expansion. This was the first kit that I had the idea for the finished phrase before I actually had the kit. I knew I would need a ton of text room so I got this one with the intention of expanding the flowery frame. It was a pain in the ass. Also the back stitching of the flowers (and then my extra flowers) was a pain in the ass. 

Behold even more!

I teased SLJ and some stitched m- effers in a previous post but unfortunately this quote is severely lacking the swears. Perhaps another time. For now just continue all of your beholding. This kit works as a parody of the original and it enjoyable by itself too. I even did a zillion french knots and didn't drop as many m-effers as usual. Overall a win of a mod. 

2017 is looking to be a record setting year for the MO in terms of posts. I mean, it's mostly a dumpster fire otherwise, but completed kits/post wise it's looking pretty good. I hope you get as much solace from looking at these as I get from making them. I also hope that in the not so distance future we both get some new solace from somewhere where it is always sunny. (not subtle winky face)

Work work work work work work

Whoa. I'm really picking up the pace here. Under a year this time. If only you all knew how long this one has sat finished but not posted... Oh well. On we go!

Being maladjusted shockingly doesn't pay the bills. And very few people not named Oprah truly love their jobs. For too many years I had a job that I liked certain aspects of (i.e. cash money) while disliking essentially working in a live Dilbert cartoon partially staffed with Dementors. So when I saw this kit, it immediately spoke to me. I knew what to do with it. I gladly handed over my painstakingly earned $3.99 and furiously began a stitchin'. Somewhere in between then and now I changed jobs. There is smiling at the new place. And surprise pizza parties. My progress on the kit slowed as I no longer had the daily work rage to motivate me. I eventually did power through and then stopped short of posting until.... today.

Let me just point out some of the items I found relatable in the original:

• Similar bad hair
• Having to work on an old ass computer
• General look of soul-crushed dead-ness
• Cardigans

Unrelatable items:

• Floppy hat and umbrella? I feel like it should be a one or the other situation. Or in my case neither.

I drew my inspiration for the mod from the third part of my coping trifecta- humor (the other parts being bourbon and cross stitching). 

It's hard to see (because of my poor photography skills) but I assure you that she still has the sad little thread mouth that the original has. 

It's safe to assume that anyone who has read this far is likely already familiar with the vast filmography of Will Ferrell, but I will nonetheless include the following video for reference purposes and because it makes me laugh. Every. Time.

Luckily, (for you- not me) every time I see any current events nowadays I am increasing my stores of  maladjustedness. Time to make America great(ly filled with little tiny Xs) again,

P.S. So many french knots! Like a boss!

P.P.S. Next mod will feature some Samuel L. Jackson. Hold onto your butts!

All the king's horses do the Humpty Hump!

 Another year between posts. Still no apologies. Especially for this gap. I had shit to do. (Read: Jurassic World. The Force Awakens. Deadpool). Is that enough small talk? Cool. Let's get to the business end of this post because that's frankly why we are both here.

I'm just going to assume that all of my maladjusted readers are familiar with Humpty Dumpty. It's a pretty standard nursery rhyme (standard being messed up & rhyme-y) but have you ever really thought about it? Just why is Humpty Dumpty usually portrayed as an anthropomorphic egg? Nothing in the rhyme itself mentions it. I think if you were telling a story about some guy trolling on a wall and that guy just happened to be a giant Egg-man that you might want to add that part in. I would say that's a pretty big detail.

Maybe Mr. Dumpty is depicted as an egg because the more realistic version (drunk regular dude acting a fool on the king's wall) would be a little too sad for a nursery rhyme. No wait. The more I know about the origins of nursery rhymes the more I know how messed up they are. Maybe Humpty 'Drunky' Dumpty wouldn't be sad enough unless he's also a freak of nature banished to the wall and drowning his sorrows in booze.

Most importantly: why did the all the king's horses and all the king's men try to fix Humpty up? WTF King!?! Send all of your fucking doctors or wizards!

Also,why is this Humpty wearing pants but no shoes?

I had an idea of the text of this mod immediately. Especially given Humpty's gangster wave.

It was truly a struggle to choose just one line from Digital Underground's classic. With lyrics like: "But sometimes I get ridiculous. I'll eat up all your crackers and your licorice" and "Samoans do the Humpty Hump" how do you pick?

I know what you're thinking. "MO, why didn't you add the 24 kt gold finish charms?!? Wouldn't Humpty look extra dope with gold finish buttons?" We both know the answer. Laziness.

Fun Fact: The Humpty Dance came out in 1990. This kit was dated 1991. Did the song inspire this sweet kit at all?  Probably not. Just wanted to remind us both how fucking old we are.

I've got a really great project on deck. So be sure to check back in soon!*

*let's be honest. It'll be a while.

Someone needs to take it easy with the Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters...

Two posts in as many days? Don't get used to it dear readers. I actually took some time to look around on blogger and learned 2 things. 1) I can schedule posts to be published  (hence I am writing this on Wednesday and posting this on Friday whilst the real the MO is in the middle of a 16.5 hour work day.) and 2) blogger tracks my traffic sources. 

Apparently there has been some traffic from pinterest. I have not pinned anything from this site but am really curious to see what has been pinned. I did some lazy pinterest searches for things like cross stitch & rabies and cross stitching & fml and didn't come up with anything. I feel like the prime audience for pinterest is middle aged teachers (no offense Mr. the MO!), stay at home moms who enjoy making things out of pallets, and people planning weddings. I don't know what this blog would have to offer any of them. Oh well. If you do see any of this on pinterest lemme know.

On to the good stuff. This kit was yet another love/morbid fascination at first sight. 

   

Why would a dolphin need a floaty? Or sunglasses? Or a lei? My guess is in the post title... Despite having no good reasons for any of what is wearing this dolphin is looking fancy as fuck. That's why I thought it was deserving of a hot bitches label. This kit had been in the nearly done stage for a long time. Then the right text finally hit me.

Once again, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy explains everything. Everything. If you have never read or heard of h2G2, then you (my former friend) and I are "fucking done, professionally." (if I might be so bold as to quote Batman.)

Alternative texts for this mod were as follows:

• "When life gives you trouble.. blow blow!"
• underwater cocaine didn't seem to really work.

• "Looks like someone needs more Haldol!"
• free drug marketing? nope. even I have standards.

Cats? On the Internet? What a shock....

Remember how years ago I refused to apologize for taking a long break between posts and noted that it would likely happen again? Well past self definitely knew how future/present self operates. Hopefully taking a few years off between posts will further decrease my blog readership. This blog is appropriate for absolutely no one, so I guess you could say that I'm doing the internet a favor by being intermittently productive.

If you've ever thought "Hey the MO, how to you decide which projects to take on?" then today is your lucky day. I'll give you a little insight into my process/madness. Here's some of the stringent criteria each project must meet:

• easy to obtain
• If I can buy it while wearing pajamas it's a go. So ebay for sure. Also several craft chain stores that shall remain nameless. Also also the Salvation Army/Goodwill (where pajamas are almost too dressy)
•  it must be counted cross stitch. 
• Stamped kits are a no go. Otherwise you'd see all of that dumb stamping around my sweet changes
• it must be cheap as hell
• it must pass the wtf?!? test. wtf in this context meaning "who?!? the five questions":

1. who would manufacture this?!?
2. who would pay for this?!?
3. who would take time to make this?!?
4.  who would display this?!?
5. who the hell was this intended for?!?

 Want an example of something that exceeded my high standards, especially for its wtf-ishness? Feast your eyeballs on this mess:

Just soak it all in. I had an idea right away for the text but at first I was a little reluctant to do it. 1) it seemed a little risque 2) it involved making that yellow box a bit bigger & that would require more work on my part. Eventually I decided- to hell with it. It's time to take my depravity to the next, and inevitable level.

 I went back and forth on whether to do google in black or in google colors. I went with colors since, although harder to see, would be more google-y. This kit appears to be part of some sort of series, "Pet Peeves." If I can find any of the others in this series (with little to no effort of course) that would be great.

Well see you 5 years bitches!

Just kidding. I actually have another post ready to go.

P.S. If you have any particularly snarky or witty answers to the wtf?!? test questions feel free to leave them in the comments section. I suppose you could apply the test to either the original kit or my mod with equally hilarious results.

Well, Clarice - have the lambs stopped screaming?

So to change things up I present to you my first wearable mod. And it's my first stamped cross stitch mod. The kit had washable ink so it was possible for me to bastardize the text, pop it in the washer and voila.

I've been holding onto this mod for quite a while and have subsequently lost the original packaging. How are you ever going to see the original design? By clicking here. For all of you dear readers too lazy to click on the link and for when the link inevitably goes extinct and I am inevitably too lazy to update it, the original text read: "Conserve Water, Drink Wine"

Not quite sure if it's more of a jab at environmentalism or a playful promotional of alcoholism. Probably a mix of both. One major concern that I have is that this apron is white. Wtf, right? When you go all Julia Childs in the kitchen and get some of your booze on your dark colored apron there's no issue. With the white apron you'd have to take a break from your cooking and drinking to break out the OxiClean. Not cool.

Second concern, who would use this as is? Perhaps the spouse of some semi-retired professor would wear it while hosting a dinner party for the couple's euchre club/ friends of the library posse / grad students groupies. Or perhaps for the same person lushing-out at home alone while the same semi-retired professor is out doing field research and possibly a co-ed in some exotic locale.

On to the mod. I'm presenting this part without comment, but feel free to add your own. Enjoy and Happy Halloween!