one and done

so remember bernie and his mittens from a few weeks ago (holy cow, it seems like forever ago)?  well, i'd bought the pattern for the crocheted version and gave it a try.  it started off pretty well, with the body and the butt stitching up easily.

from there, i added his head with eyes and nose.

it was a little difficult trying to make any progress on ol' bernie though, with these two doing their best to distract me (and succeeding).

eventually, he got ears and hair that started off as a piece crocheted separately and sewn on to the back of his head, and then i used a dog wire slicker brush to unravel the yarn and make it look like actual hair.

working with wire isn't the easiest thing to do, and his glasses came out pretty wonky.  but i'd fiddled with it for long enough and figured this was good enough.

and after that it got a lot more difficult.  for his legs, the pattern had me start with his shoes and work my way up.  i had some difficulty making them the same size, but again - i was over it and didn't want to start over.  the arms were even trickier, with the tiny stitches to make the mittens really hard to see with these aging eyes.  and i still didn't get them as nice as i'd have liked, but it was good enough.  luckily, the coat and face mask were much easier to complete and finally i had a completed bernie doll:

and of course, i have the most perfect tee to commemorate this silly moment in time.

i ended up having to tell people that i wasn't going to be able to fulfill orders for the doll after all.  once was quite enough - it had taken a soul-crushing two weeks to finish him as it was.  as much as i'd have loved to spread the bernie joy, i wasn't really up for the frustration again.  oh well.

has it stopped being funny yet?

i'm sure that you've seen all the hilarious bernie sanders memes out there.  i was super amused when i saw this one:

and then there was the NYU guy who created a website that would let you put bernie anywhere, just by typing in an address.  i also started seeing people photoshopping him into all kinds of hilarious places, like in the millennium falcon or on the "friends" couch, plus a bunch of folks who figured out how to insert him into their family photos.

after downloading a free version of the photoshop app onto my phone and doing a little playing around, i made it work here:

and here:

this one was the hub's favorite - the bean's cheer team but with a special guest.

and by now, i'm sure you'll have seen the crocheted version of grumpy, masked bernie.  the photo has been posted everywhere, and the lady who created him wrote up the pattern and instructions and listed it on etsy.  so far she's made about 30,000 sales - which is amazing and awesome.  so many people begged her to sell the finished product, so she decided to put that bad boy on ebay to donate all of the proceeds to meals on wheels.  of course, that's the same charity that is benefiting from the sweatshirt that bernie himself put on his own website to raise money.  it's so great.  and last time i checked the bids were up to over $12,000!  

i have a few people who've asked if i can crochet the famous bernie doll, so i bought that pattern and i'm going to give it a shot.  but in the meantime, i found something else that i stitched up immediately:

i can't stop giggling.  and i love that this is what has so many people's attention right now.  it's just so nice to have something silly for people all across the country to giggle together about.

have we finally returned to a place where politics might just be boring again?  if not quite yet, i sure hope that day comes soon.