Merav Hoffman

I pretty much craft like breathing. Mostly my crafts have to do with some kind of yarn, or yarnlike substance, but I've been known to dip into beading, sewing, costuming, Muppet making, and graphic arts, though lately that's mostly been channeled into making icons for LiveJournal.

If it can be crocheted, I've probably done it. Short of making those crochet toilet-paper cover Barbie dolls with no legs that my paternal grandmother used to make, it's probably been on my project list at one time or another. I've made a slew of afghans, from newborn infant size to kingsized bed, also shawls, sweaters, socks, scarves, hats, a coat dress, and yes, even a folder cozy for Batya.

Recently I've gotten into Tunisian crochet, which resembles knitting to an amazing degree. This has been fun, because there are so many knitting patterns which I can now fake up -- assuming I decipher the symbols -- without having to learn a new craft. It's really fun to watch people who knit look over and see the fabric, and realize that there's only one needle, and not a knitting needle.

I am on Ravelry as meravhoffman, please feel free to find and friend me there, particularly if we've geeked about crafting in real life.

So some friends of mine had a friend getting married and I was invited to the wedding as a plus-one. Since it was a costume wedding, we decided that we ought to do a group costume, and tried to brainstorm groups of four. We thought about the Beatles, but then we thought of something much better. The Electric Mayhem from The Muppet Show!

Thus began a multi-week project, that consisted, in large part of buying a lot of orange ostrich feathers, tempra paint, styrofoam eggs, yarn, elastic headbands, and accessories. I bought a gold tooth, a pink top hat and a striped turtleneck. My friend Julian procured a Sargent Pepper style Beatles jacket in red, and a green cap, and after a lot of gluing, shaving, blue-tacking, pancake application, wigmaking, and manipulation of feather bits, we finally had three and a half Muppets.

Lisa's costume was somewhat less than practical, since we basically had to work around the fact that she was in the wedding party, however, I think the rest of us looked pretty nice. Judge for yourself.

Josh, myself and Julian as Zoot, Dr. Teeth and Floyd

If there is a next time, I might redo my make-up job to give myself a wider grin, since painting my lips green in accordance with the original design for Dr. Teeth basically makes it look like I have no mouth. I do like how they eye make-up turned out though, and I particularly like the mutton chops and lashes on Floyd.

My friend Aaron also suggested I make a Muppet wreath from a model he found on a website. Since my friend Michael made the perfect recipient for this, I set to work, and soon had a pod of eyes on my craft table. Some work with scissors and a hot glue gun later, and I had my wreath. Michael was delighted.