So the time came where I was getting ready to craft for Halloween. I wanted themed decorations. After seeing the Broadway Across America rendition of the book I'd adored for half my life, the theme came easily enough.
The Creepy-Cute style seemed natural for the project, but I wanted something a little more complex. The mini-Phantom would have been happy for me to crochet the mask right onto his face (or just to make him cute instead of creepy). But that to me seemed to lose so much character.
So crochet faster! I've got careers to ruin and people to strangle, and I need props. Oh, and something I can wear on a date... I can't go out looking like this! I solved the main technical problem easily (if disturbingly).
You want me to... button it onto my eye??But mini-Erik seemed a lot happier as a result.
Naaaaaaah! Na na na na naaaaaaaaaaah!!!The mini-Phantom developed a personality based on things I found funny about the book/production/2004 movie. But it was as though I'd bred a chihuahua. Whereas the full-sized Phantom had his majesty, his wounded dignity, and ultimately some decency, his crochet version just had a lot of weird ticks - he told dirty musician jokes, spied on me and my husband in the bedroom, talked about his hosery fetish, and rewrote all of Lloyd Weber's production -
all of it! - to be about breaking large light fixtures.
But also unlike the full-sized Phantom, he was so... cuddly! He liked to sit on my chest and read gothic shorts with me, and I'd pat his little mostly-bald head. When he demanded lots of props, I was happy to satisfy him with a wee little Punjab lasso, a pair of plyers from an old charm necklace...
Paaaaast the point of no return
No upward glances
The exit's blocked, so let this thing descend......and of course the other technical challenge.
...What raging fires shall flood the crowd!
What rich desires to scream out loud!
What sweet destruction lies befooooooore uuuussssss...It was the chandelier, I think, that took my husband over the edge. That or my refusal to crochet a Raoul (on the grounds that he'd be subject to repeated stranglings, chandelier-induced traumas, or catnip massages. My husband fantacizes wearing a cute little Hussar uniform like the one Raoul wears to the masquerade).
The huz decided I gave the Phantom whatever he wanted (not true; I drew the line at letting him saw a trapdoor in the dresser so he could disappear into his lair in the sock drawer). Soon it was war between them. They were trash-talking each other ("Bravo Messeur, such spirited words!") and challenging each other to sword fights and setting stuff on fire. (No doubt my husband I had to prevent a disaster beyond imagination. (Actually I did imagine the huz strangled by a long piece of red yarn.)
Of course, we all know the Phantom has one weakness.
My nuptual mass has been written. Wait till you hear the kyrie!But having refused to crochet Raoul for ethical reasons, how could I possibly make a cute little soprano for the Phantom to kidnap? I argued to him that couldn't make Christine because she wasn't creepy. He said, she'd be sort of creepy if she was wearing the wedding dress I picked out for her like she did at the end of the production.
I ran out of arguments. I felt like Dr. Frankenstein - quite the wrong story. But there was a ray of hope - Raoul was ultimately helpless against the Phantom. Christine had a chance.
The Phantom made me redo the dress three times before he was sure it would fit her, and then rip out all the lace. And don't even get me started about making those Sarah Brightman curls. But as I worked, I realized that Christine, too, was being changed a bit by the shrinking. She was going to be cute. Heartbreakingly, devastatingly cute. But while the real Christine seemed slightly ashamed of her duplicity, mini-Christine would return to the sock drawer freely just to torment the Phantom with her cuteness. She was going to have him whipped. She was going to have his mask any time she wanted it.
Thanks for looking!
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Great colors. I heart big squares.
