Attention Wal-Mart Shoppers

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We’ve all seen that one cart that seems to have lost its herd. Worse yet are those times when the whole herd seems to have lost its way back to the pen.

The problem isn’t even limited to those giant megastores with miles long parking lots, either. Be it a tiny craft store, local grocer, or the ever-present town megamart, those meandering carts will find their way into the parking spaces.

Placing the cart stalls closer together may seem the most obvious, easy solution, but the length of the walk from the car to the cart return doesn’t matter. Inevitably there will be that one person who parks next to the return stall and leaves the cart in the space on the opposite side of the car.

There is only one real solution to the problem: self-returning carts. If all the shops would install a “New New York” (you’ve all seen Futurama, right?) style interwoven system of tubes below the parking lot, the carts would just have to be placed into holes in the ground and it would take care of the rest.

Then again, giant gaping holes might be a glaring safety hazard ripe for lawsuits. And of course there would be that one jerk who pushes the cart right to the edge of the hole and leaves it.

Maybe the carts need to fly instead…

What slight daily annoyances would you want changed? Anyone have a better idea for how to take care of the rogue shopping carts?

Everyone Needs a Minion or Two

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My mom works for a non-profit agency as an administrative assistant. Once a year they hold a gala to raise money. That gala happens to be coming up in March, so everyone has been overworking themselves.

I decided to help out. By making a minion for her. Not real help, but cute help.

We’ve wanted minions from the first time we saw the commercials for Despicable Me. Now I have made one.

I didn’t use a pattern for this one, but Just Crafty Enough has a similar pattern here. Mine is a mix of crochet and knit, but the pattern is knit in the round.

What other characters do you find yourself wishing you could have for your very own? Anyone else made a Minion?

P.S.- Exciting news on Thursday. You may already know if you follow me on Twitter…

Ollie The Owl

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Meet Ollie. He’s my first knit owl. I have arbitrarily named him Ollie because it sounded good paired with the word “owl” and I have no clue whether he currently has a name beyond “Owl”. This little guy was a Valentine’s present for another little guy that I watch three days a week.

Ollie was made from the “Little Black Owl” pattern posted by Kat on Just Crafty Enough. It’s a top-down pattern with the ears and wings picked up later when the body is finished.

I tacked down the wings like the original, but I chose to sew on the eyes and beak. I did way too many glue gun projects back in middle school to even tough a glue gun right now. And that was almost ten years ago. (Seriously, way too many. We made them every month for old people who were kind of like our “pen pals.”)

I figured an owl made a perfect companion for the Valentine’s Fish. Who says predator and prey can’t get along on a day that’s all about love?