In Which Queer Fantasy Hockey Smut Is Way Better Than The Real Toxic Masculinity Of The Actual NHL

Not to be all gender essentialist or anything, but I swear to god there is nothing like a man for screwing up a good thing.

I have just come down from a blissful few weeks, an absolute fever dream of hockey fandom. I don't know if you're tuned into hockey media, but the Heated Rivalry TV show has had been AWESOME for hockey lovers! It genuinely turned actual hockey from a sport that people followed into a proper fandom. It just honestly felt so cheerful and wholesome, with my social media full of cute hockey fan edits and Capcuts and memes and craft projects and funny discussions. 

And then the Olympics started, and it got even better! We're talking all that, plus 2+ hockey games a day to watch, PLUS all the extra wholesome, cheerful cuteness that comes specifically from the Olympics. I subscribe to the admittedly idealized notion that the Olympics is meant to celebrate sportsmanship as much as athleticism, and it was really cool to see the PWHL and NHL players dispersed throughout the various countries' teams, as well as the USA and Canada teams consisting of pro players from all the different PWHL and NHL teams. 

It has to have been THE best time to have been a hockey fan.

And now it sucks, so thanks, Trump.

And like, I'm not stupid. I know the NHL has a huge toxic masculinity problem, that it's historically misogynistic and homophobic and racist. But I'd ABSOLUTELY thought that history was on my side, and that every year it was trending just a little more towards actual diversity and acceptance, towards You Can Play and Hockey is for Everyone, etc. Like, surely the NHL wants more fans--or at least their money--and if becoming more diverse and less toxic was clearly the key to that, then clearly they would jump on it. With this active fan culture of late, female-forward and diverse and queer and having a lot of fun, it was really feeling like we were on the cusp of some kind of revolution. 

But obviously we weren't, because the NHL and most of the players in it are actively rich boy right-wing misogynistic MAGA bullies who think it's funny to laugh at the expense of the USA Women's Hockey Team, who objectively did better than them in the Olympics, by the way, and then not apologize, and then act like people are overreacting when they're mad about it.

Whatever. They came out of the whole thing looking stupid, they clearly don't actually want me as a fan, or care about my little bit of fan-money I was spending on them, and now I'm gonna watch the PWHL instead.

My NHL dysphoria is so bad right now that if I'd written this review of Tough Guy last week, I'd probably have given it two stars, because it's not that good, but today? Ryan and Fabian are getting four stars from me, just for the pleasure they bring by living in a world in which there are multiple openly gay professional male hockey players. 

The fact that Fabian is portrayed as a kind of Violin Ed Sheeran and it's so corny? Don't care anymore. Love him.

The crazy height difference descriptions, including the time that Fabian and Ryan are dancing and we learn that Ryan's belt buckle is bumping into Fabian's RIB CAGE, and also I can't look it up because I listened to the audio version but I swear there's a time that Fabian STANDS ON A LITERAL CHAIR and is about Ryan's height? Completely realistic. No notes.

I did genuinely love the interesting way that this relationship threaded the needle between Game Changer's insta love and Heated Rivalry's eight-year situationship. Having Fabian and Ryan as childhood friends who'd lost contact did allow for some elements of insta love that got to feel realistic, because we know that they've done all that boring getting to know you work off-screen, and now we get to focus on how they build this emotional connection, the cute dates and waffle brunches with Fabian's friends, etc. I was not at all into the physical chemistry between Fabian and Ryan, but that's okay, I guess, because they're into each other.

I *was* pretty into the premise that Ryan is an enforcer, because the NHL doesn't have those anymore (John Scott did the BEST job at the 2016 All-Star Game, and also kinda caused the long-overdue dismantling of the enforcer position as a whole because the NHL was just that butthurt about how genuinely wonderful he was). I feel like the premise that Ryan hates being an enforcer is also earned (see also: John Scott), with his goal being the most heartwarming part of the book, but imo Fabian made waaaay too much out of watching Ryan's hockey fight highlight reel. Like, it's not a dogfight or cockfight or baby bunny fight or whatever--they're grown men! They're fine!

Also, mental note that when you've got a crush on an artist, the romantic thing to do is to PURCHASE all their music to binge. Ryan is too sweet to pirate music like everyone else, and I love that for him. Or he's just too rich, but whatever. I'll take it, as long as he's supporting small artists.

Random notes:

• My genuinely favorite part of the book is when Ryan refers to his body as "an old, weathered barn." It's evocative, and surprisingly poetic.
• My favorite character in this series so far is Wyatt. Love a backup goalie, especially one that logs a ton of volunteer hours!
• My current favorite part of all the non-Heated Rivalry books I've read in this series so far is when Ilya makes his Gay Fairy Hockey Godfather cameo. It's so random and funny, and honestly kind of out of character, but I don't care, because it's Ilya!

Predictions for future books:

• At some point, Shane and Ilya will collect the full set of queer male pro hockey players--plus Wyatt! And maybe Hayden!--for their hockey charity. 
• I've been spoiled a little bit for The Long Game, just enough that I don't have DIYing a Voyageurs jersey on my to-do list, and now that Wyatt is also a Centaur I think they should also collect all the queer male pro hockey players--other than Scott Hunter, I guess, who is currently being smug and perfect and happy in Common Goal--for Ottawa. It would be even better if Ryan came out of retirement, since it seems like he actually does like hockey when he gets to properly play, or he could coach and that might be even cuter.
• And then if they DO manage to collect all the queer male pro hockey players, obviously they must win the Cup!

In conclusion, I still want to DIY Shane's Team Canada sherpa, and a Boston Bears sweater with "Rosanov" on the back, but thank GAWD that I did not pull the trigger on the "Quinn Hughes Surrounded by Ghosts" cross-stitch pattern I was eyeing. I'm not saying I'm never watching NHL hockey again, because Sidney Crosby has yet to disappoint me, but that league as a whole is in my personal penalty box for at least the rest of this season while I develop my far more appropriate and non-problematic crush on Hilary Knight.

Go, Torrent!

Game Changer Reviews:

1. Game Changer
2. Heated Rivalry
3. Tough Guy
4. Common Goal (I'm reading this right now!)

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Sew a Wildlife Rescue Pouch from Fleece Scraps

I originally published this tutorial over at Crafting a Green World.

Your local wildlife rescue wants your fleece scraps!

Not as-is, of course, because what would be the fun in that? Rather, if there’s an organization near you that rescues orphaned or injured wildlife for rehabilitation, it probably needs as many of these simple, easy-to-sew fleece pouches as you can make.

Wildlife rescues use fleece pouches to contain small and baby animals in a way that keeps them feeling safe and comfortable. It mimics the type of pouch that a marsupial animal will be familiar with, and recreates the feeling of a nest for other animals. It helps keep animals comfortably contained while they recover, and gives them a sense of security that a cage doesn’t.

Requiring only four straight seams, these fleece pouches are also incredibly easy to sew. If you’ve got a beginner or young sewist, this is a great first project!

The potential for scrapbusting, though, is my favorite part! I don’t usually like to work with fleece, so the scraps from my few and far between fleece projects tend to linger. This latest batch of pouches, though, helped me usefully get rid of all the last scraps from the mermaid, shark, and mermaid skeleton snuggle sacks that I sewed for my kids last Christmas. That mermaid skeleton, especially, required a lot of inconvenient cuts into a giant length of white fleece, so I am THRILLED that it is now out of my fabric bin for good!

Here’s what you need to make your own fleece pouches to donate:

• scrap fleece. The smallest pouch that my local wildlife rescue uses is 4″x4″, which means that the smallest fleece scrap that I can use are approximately 5″x9″. The largest pouches they need are approximately 12″x12″, so my largest scrap cuts are approximately 13″x25″. You can generally use any size between those two dimensions.
• measuring and cutting tools. After catching my teenager, the most responsible person in the family after me, in the act of using my favorite fabric scissors to cut a price tag off a shirt, I recently bought a new pair of fabric scissors and I changed my family scissors rule to forbid ANYONE ELSE FROM USING THESE SCISSORS. I don’t care what you need them for–you cannot use my scissors! You want to beat up a pair of scissors? Buy yourself a pair to beat up, because you’re staying far away from mine.
• sewing supplies. Because the orphaned baby raccoons don’t care, I like to use this project to finish up half-empty bobbins and my grossest neon orange thread.

Before you begin, contact the wildlife rescue that you have in mind and ask them if these pouches are an appropriate donation and if so, what sizes they prefer. These are the pouches and sizes that my local wildlife rescue has requested, but your rescue may want something different depending on the types of wildlife they commonly encounter. It’s very bad form to burden a non-profit with stuff they don’t want, so do your research!

If your local wildlife rescue doesn’t need any fleece pouches, I’ve included the mailing address of my local rescue at the end of this post.

Step 1: Cut fabric scraps to size.

The whole point of a big back deck is to make a big mess on it!

For each pouch, you will need two pieces of fleece that are the same size. Here are the dimensions of pouches I most commonly sew, based on what my local wildlife rescue requests:

• 4″x4″ pouch: two pieces of fleece that are 5″x9″.
• 6″x6″ pouch: two pieces of fleece that are 7″x13″.
• 6″x8″ pouch (opening on the long side): two pieces of fleece that are 9″x13″.
• 8″x8″ pouch: two pieces of fleece that are 9″x17″.
• 12″x8″ pouch (opening on the short side): two pieces of fleece that are 9″x25″.

Because my local wildlife rescue tends to need the larger sizes more, I like to start cutting the largest sizes I can first, then gradually move down the list as my scrap sizes also diminish.

Since the sizing also only needs to be approximate, you can also eliminate waste by cutting pieces between any of these sizes.

Step 2: Sew each piece into a pouch.

Fold each fleece piece in half (halve the long side of each piece), then sew down each of the two sides adjacent to the fold. Trim all thread.

You’ll have a simple pouch with an open end opposite the fold. You’ll need two of these for each wildlife rescue pouch.

Step 3: Sew the pouches together.

Turn one pouch right side out, then place it inside a second pouch. The right sides of the pouches should now be facing each other, but the pouch on the outside should still be inside-out.

Sew around the top edge to sew the pouches together, leaving a few inches unsewn for turning.

Turn the pouches right sides out through that hole.

Fold the pouch that you’d like to be on the inside to the inside, and straighten the seam around the top edge by hand, finger pressing the raw edges of that unsewn opening to the inside.

Top stitch around the top edge of the pouch, sewing closed that unsewn section as you go.

Give the entire pouch another look, making sure there are no loose threads for a tiny animal to tangle in or skipped stitches that would leave a hole for a tiny animal to get stuck in.

This is optional, but I like to wash and dry my finished pouches before I donate them, just to make sure they’re squeaky clean and free of skin oils and dust and dog fur.

Above is my recent donation–not bad for a couple of hours and a bunch of scraps I was thrilled to get rid of!

If you don’t have a wildlife rescue organization near you, this is the mailing address for my local wildlife rescue:

WILDCARE, INC.

198 N. HARTSTRAIT RD.

BLOOMINGTON, IN, 47401

Here's what I did with the rest of that fleece!

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I Can Now Cook Eight Things, But Two Of Them Are Just Different Kinds Of Cookies

Chocolate Build-a-Base Cookie Cake, with cream cheese frosting and fruit

All About Cookies: A Milk Bar Baking Book by Christina Tosi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am currently the world’s most medium-low okay-ish cook, but this is the year that I’ve committed to learning how to cook better. Or, if not objectively better, maybe just more than six things that come out decent most of the time?

Cocoa Mint Chip Cookies, specifically the batch where I used up all the leftover Christmas candy!

And so far, I seem to have decided to do that by checking out library cookbooks that sound good and attempting to cook from them. It’s going… okay? I honestly tend to do better with children’s cookbooks, because they explain everything to me like I’m five, which I definitely need, and because they don’t include a lot of fussy elements, which I’m struggling to have the patience for.

The pecans in this cookie cake were also leftover from Christmas...

To be fair, though: to me, fussy more or less means anything that requires more from me than simply dumping in all the ingredients at once, stirring them together, and hoping for the best. I also have a really bad habit of switching up ingredients for no good reason other than that I want to use up something in my pantry, but at least whenever I do that I don’t blame the recipe **cough, cough** https://www.reddit.com/r/ididnthaveeggs/ **cough**.

So the major benefits of this cookbook for me are that 1) everything is explained in a lot of detail so I understand what I’m supposed to do, and 2) all the recipes that I tried are almost quick and easy enough that I mostly followed them like I was supposed to, which means that all the cookies came out really delicious!

The best recipe is for these amazingly delicious Cocoa Mint Chip Cookies. I absolutely burned them the first two times I made them, because they’re dark so I couldn’t tell when they’d browned and I wasn’t sure what consistency they were supposed to be, but they were delicious anyway. Just… crispy delicious! I have also never made them exactly the way the recipe says to, because I keep wanting to do other stuff instead. I added in the peppermint chips, which are spendy as HELL but very good, but instead of proper chocolate chips I have used, in various combinations, 1) chopped Hershey bars, 2) crushed candy canes, 3) m&ms, and 4) white chocolate chips. This is a great recipe for using up the leftover Christmas candy!

Crushed candy canes were VERY good in this!

My favorite part of all these recipes is how well everything freezes. I’ve had really mixed results trying to freeze food, or rather, trying to cook it again from frozen, with my most devastating failure being my former favorite peanut butter cookie recipe. Side note: if you’ve got a super basic peanut butter cookie recipe that cooks from frozen without turning into a weird puddle of oily peanut butter, let me know! But I ALSO don’t need to eat a full-on batch of cookies within a day. I really miss having teenagers at home, sigh. But I feel like I am living the life I was meant to live when I can take two cookies out of the freezer and bake them to enjoy over a crossword puzzle. And when a neighbor offered to bring over his tractor one snowy day and plow my driveway, and I had just enough time to pull a dozen cookies out of the freezer and bake them for him before he came back, I was all, “Ah, this is what it is to be competent!”

Not a single one of these fruits was actually in season for Valentine's Day, so none of them were very sweet. Thank goodness for all that added sugar!

I also had success freezing the Chocolate Build-a-Base Cookie, with crushed pecans mixed in, after it was baked so that when I wanted to have fruit pizza for Valentine’s Day I didn’t also have bake the cookie cake that day. Like, is this what adult life is meant to feel like? I have literally nothing else going for me at the moment, but I do have cookies in the freezer ready to bake!

P.S. View all my reviews

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How to Sew an Envelope-Back Pillowcase

I originally published this tutorial over at Crafting a Green World.

A pillowcase with an envelope back is the easiest type of pillowcase to sew!

At least for decorative pillows! If you’re sewing a pillow for a bed, do yourself a favor and check out the “magic” pillowcase tutorial.

I like how neat and polished an envelope-back pillowcase looks, even more so than one with a zipper, in my opinion. Omitting that zipper also makes an envelope-back pillowcase much more comfortable, meaning that your decorative pillow can also perform its second most important job of Naptime Support Specialist. Or, if you have two decorative pillows, the third most important job of Footrest.

It’s very easy to make an envelope-back pillowcase from scratch, even if you’re a novice sewist. Here’s how!

Materials

To make an envelope-back pillowcase, you will need:

• pillow form. I’m using a 16″x16″ pillow for this project, but here’s an example of a 26″x26″ pillowcase that I sewed from quilting cotton.
• fabric. You’ll need three pieces of fabric approximately the size of your pillow plus 1.5″. You’ll cut two of those pieces down to size, so read through the instructions first if you have some smaller, scrappier pieces you want to use, and you’ll see how to calculate the exact yardage you need for your specific pillow.
• bias tape. You need two pieces of approximately 1/4″ bias tape, each as long as your pillow plus 1.5″. Bias tape is SUPER easy to make from scratch, so you can perfectly match your pillowcase fabric, if you’d like.
• measuring, pinning, cutting and sewing supplies.

Step 1: Measure and cut your pillowcase pieces.

Your pillow form should have a tag that gives its dimensions. If not, simply measure its length and width with a fabric measuring tape. If your pillow is rectangular instead of square like mine, you can still make an envelope back pillowcase for it; just decide which way you want the pillow oriented, and calculate, cut, and sew accordingly.

The front panel should measure one 1.5″ wider than the pillow form on both length and width if you want a snug fit like the one in these photos, and 2.5″ or even more if you want more ease. A looser fit is easier to stuff and change, but a snug fit looks nicer, in my opinion.

For my 16″x16″ pillow, my front panel is 17.5″x17.5″. Just between us, this made for a pillowcase that’s a little too snug, because I didn’t account for how fat that pillow form is! It still fits, but there’s some whiskering across the width and if it gets a lot of wear I’ll probably be mending around that applique in a few years. So let my mistake guide you, and take the fatness of your pillow form into account when deciding ease.

Each of the two back panels should be the same width as the front panel, but should be only about 2/3 of the length. The exactness of this measure isn’t terribly important, so I approximated, since 3 does not go neatly into 16. For my 16″x16″ pillow, then, each of my back panels are 11″x17.5″.

Step 2: Sew bias tape to the envelope edges of the back panels.

Sew bias tape across one width side of each of the back panel pieces, encasing the raw edge of each. These will be the edges that overlap to create the envelope closure.

Step 3: Sew the back panels to the front panel.

Whichever back panel piece you pin to the front panel first will be the outer panel once you’ve turned your finished pillowcase right sides out. I want my top panel on the outside, so I’m pinning it to my front panel first. Pin the panels right sides together.

Don’t start sewing yet! Instead, next pin the second back panel piece flush with the opposite end of the front panel, right sides together. Visually check the overlap of the envelope back to make sure you like it, and to make sure that the bias tape sides are at the overlap, NOT the far edges.

NOW you can sew!

Using a .5″ seam allowance, sew all the way around the pillowcase, sewing both back panels to the front panel. Backstitch over both ends of the overlap to reinforce them, since they’ll be pulled on whenever you change your pillowcase.

My favorite part of sewing this pillowcase is that I don’t have to leave a hole for turning, fuss with attaching a zipper, etc. It’s so quick and easy!

Clip the corners, turn right side out, press it smooth, and pop it on a pillow!

As you can see, you can do a lot of cute things with that front panel. Here, I appliqued the logo of my kid’s college onto the front panel fabric, but I’ve also pieced and quilted pillowcase fronts, and once I even used fabric markers to illustrate one. The possibilities are endless!

What are you going to put on the front of YOUR pillow?

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How to Make 3D Paper Hearts for Valentine's Day

I originally published this tutorial over at Crafting a Green World.

These 3D paper hearts are the perfect decoration for a perfect day!

My favorite projects are the ones that I can make with the supplies that I already have entirely on-hand… and my second-favorite projects are the ones that I can easily recycle, upcycle, compost, or otherwise entirely dispose of with little effort if I decide I no longer want them. Because although I love decorating for a holiday, I think I like taking down all those decorations afterwards and enjoying my (relatively) clutter-free home even more!

This cute 3D paper heart project encompasses both of my favorite things! Use any of your favorite papers (in these photos, I’m using vintage book pages) to craft these pretty paper hearts, and after Valentine’s Day, pop them into your paper recycling, upcycle them as greeting card or scrapbook embellishments, or shred them and mix them into your compost. Just between us, I don’t even shred them first, because I am a VERY lazy lasagna gardener.

Or keep them on display forever, because they’re just that cute!

Materials

To make these 3D paper hearts, you will need the following supplies:

• pretty papers. You need enough paper for 8-12 hearts, depending on how full you want your finished 3D heart to look. I’m using pages from a vintage book, but scrapbook paper would also be SOOO pretty. With larger hearts, the paper tends to curl if it’s very thin, so avoid lightweight papers like newspaper or wrapping paper for bigger hearts, or place thicker paper between the glued sheets to strengthen them. Cardstock would be perfect for a very large version, or even thin cardboard food packaging for a supersized version!
• heart template. You can freehand this or print out your favorite clip art, but since you’ll be making several identical cut-outs per finished 3D heart, you’ll want something to trace.
• tracing and cutting tools. A pencil and some scissors, or whatever you’ve got on hand!
• glue of your choice. A glue stick is my favorite glue for working with paper, but with all that plastic it’s not very eco-friendly, is it? SIGH! Fortunately, nearly any glue works well here. PVA glue takes a while to dry and you have to be vigilant to avoid curling, but it’s got much less plastic packaging than glue sticks do. Hot glue is in between, eco-wise, but it also dries nearly instantly and won’t cause curling.

Step 1: Cut out the paper hearts.

For the project in these photos, I’m using an 8″ wide template for the larger heart, and a 3″ wide template for the smaller one.

Gotta pay better attention to what I'm cutting out. Tuberculosis is so romantic, lol!

Trace and cut the number of paper hearts that you’ll want for your 3D version. The more hearts you use, the fuller your 3D heart will look. And the bigger your heart, the more hearts you’ll need to fill it out! For my smaller version, I used eight cut-outs and I think the end result is perfect. For my larger version, I used 12 cut-outs and I think I could have gone with at least 16 to have it look a little more full.

Step 2: Fold all the cut-outs in half.

If your cut-out is double-sided, take some time to choose which side you want to be visible in the finished product, and fold that side to the inside. The outside sides are what you’ll glue, and you won’t see them when you’re done.

Try to be as precise as you can with your folding, putting it right down the center of each cut-out, and crease the center fold well.

Step 3: Glue all the cut-outs together.

Here’s another place where you want to be so very precise!

Spread glue across one folded side of a cut-out, then stack the next cut-out exactly on top of it, pressing down to make sure that the two papers are adhered all over.

Spread glue across the folded side of the cut-out that’s now at the top of your stack, and stack the next cut-out exactly on top of that one, again pressing and smoothing to make sure the papers are well adhered.

Repeat until every cut-out is stacked and glued.

Step 4: Fluff out the finished product so the papers look nice.

Page through the whole stack of cut-outs and make sure that no glue bled through or seeped between the edges of the paper, and that none of the pages that aren’t glued are stuck together.

If you want to make your finished 3D heart into an ornament, you can insert a twine loop between the last two pages, then glue them together to seal it in. I, however, really like these opened up as a wall decoration, or, for the smaller hearts, glued to the front of a handmade valentine.

I kind of want to make a REALLY big one to put on my front door!

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Because Protesting a Fascist Government Is No Fun If Your Ears Are Cold

Or, I dunno, I just wanted to make a couple of hats.

I don't have a lot of fleece left in my fabric stash, because it picks up pet hair like CRAZY and is therefore unsuited to a home like mine, ahem, but I learned a new method of making fleece hats that are rounder, and therefore more comfortable, than the method I've previously used, so by digging through every piece of fabric I own I was able to scrounge up juuuuust enough fleece to make two new hats for my college kids.

But what I really wanted to experiment with regarding these hats is figuring out how to embellish them with fleece-on-fleece applique!

Thanks to my Cricut, cutting out the fleece applique was actually the easiest part:

That line of fuzz below the letters is where the sheet of fleece slightly overlapped the transfer tape. Without that tape, that whole section of mat would look like that!

I also recently learned that the secret trick to cutting fabric--especially fleece and felt!--without ruining your cutting mat with fuzz is to use cheap transfer tape. It's essentially a giant roll of Scotch tape, and it's meant for use with vinyl, but if you put it smooth side down on the mat and burnish the fabric onto the sticky side, it works a treat at holding the fabric perfectly for the cuts, then you can peel it off and everything stays tidy and clean!

So tidy:

Fleece-on-fleece is the easiest applique in the world to glue baste, because it will stick forever with just a glue stick, but it is the worst applique in the world to figure out how to actually, you know, SEW IT. It's got enough loft that stitches really show, and it's slightly stretchy, so you always have to worry about everything staying un-wonkified. Its saving grace is that it doesn't fray, so at least you don't have to satin stitch the damn thing, but I tried two different methods on two different hats, and I'm not happy with either of them.

I tried a simple zigzag on the little kid's hat, and honestly I thought this was going to turn out great--

--but I do not love the result:

It would be fine if the stitches didn't have so much... dimensionality? I guess? But at least it's consistent, so I can pretend that it was a design choice!

I hand-stitched the big kid's hat with a running stitch, and although I still don't love it--and I don't love how long it took--I actually like the end result a LOT better:

The stitches still show some depth, but hand-stitching allowed me to adjust the thread tension enough to keep it a bit at bay, at least, and if nothing else, the running stitch means that there are far fewer stitches involved.

At least the back side of all that stitching gets well hidden inside the fleece hat sandwich:

This four-corners business is what I wanted to try. I think it looks stupid with all the corners poked out, but if you keep the corners tucked in--

--I think the hat looks super cute, and it DOES fit very comfortably!

Two hats and one snowstorm later--

--and the kids' Valentine's Day care packages, complete with snuggly warm hats to wear to all the various and sundry protests that college students attend (college students attend a LOT of protests!) were ready to mail!

The secret trick to college student care packages?

Snacks. Lots and lots of snacks.

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