I Read Common Goal, And I May Have To Murder Kyle For My Own Peace Of Mind

This book was so boring that I genuinely forgot to review it, and then forgot that I'd forgotten! I was actually about to review Role Model (which is MUCH better!), but I wanted to revisit my reviews of the earlier books in the series first, to see if there were any commonalities. I was so confused about why I couldn't find my review for Common Goal, lol! 

Anyway, if you don't want spoilers for the most boring gay hockey smut that ever gay hockey smutted, then instead of continuing to read this, go read Common Goal for yourself. And then lie down for a looooong time, because Kyle is exhausting!

Common Goal by Rachel Reid
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The first thing you need to know is that the book’s blurb describes our hockey player, Eric, as a silver fox, but the book’s graphic shows him with a pretty standard brown flow. I don’t remember what his physical description in the actual book is, but in my head he’s somewhere in the middle. I guess we’ll have to wait for Season 2 of Heated Rivalry to see if we get any more opinions!

The second thing you need to know is that Eric’s house party scene gives me SO much second-hand anxiety! Kyle shows up, and this is totally fine and normal. But he shows up with a bunch of mocktail mixer crap that he wants to use to make Eric a custom mocktail. In Eric’s own kitchen. During a party Eric is trying to host. DUDE! Eric did not plan for you to be playing bartender when he was buying the ice for this party! He did not plan for this while he was cleaning his kitchen! And THEN Kyle actually makes this mocktail in, like, a secondary kitchen? So they’re the only people there and it’s not where the actual party is happening? I would just plain die and send myself to Hell if I thought I was somehow monopolizing the host of a house party in some separate room away from the rest of his party! Like, Kyle. ERIC IS TRYING TO HOST A PARTY. IT IS NOT UNREASONABLE TO THINK THAT HE MIGHT LIKE TO BE IN THE LOCATION OF HIS OWN LITERAL PARTY. THAT HE IS LITERALLY TRYING TO HOST.

So then Kyle makes Eric his custom mocktail, and okay, fine, it’s delicious. Whatever. But THEN he’s all, “Lmk when you want another and I’ll make you one!” So okay, let me get this straight. Eric now is obligated to drink a drink he didn’t know he was going to drink, and then he’s going to have to ASK Kyle to make him another. Like, Kyle didn’t even offer this as a whole party thing? He’s not just going to set himself up to make everyone the mocktail so it’s a proper activity? It’s… just for Eric? And Eric has to remember to ask for another, obviously, or Kyle might be disappointed that he didn’t love it. And he can’t let Kyle be disappointed--Kyle is a GUEST!!! Is asking for one more mocktail enough to be polite, or does he have to ask for a third? Three mocktails is kind of a lot of mocktails! I’m exhausted. This is exhausting behavior. Kyle is EXHAUSTING.

And as if that is not enough, you guys, at the end of the party, Kyle. Does. Not. Leave. Eric low-key, sideways hints at him to leave several times, and Kyle just. Does. Not. Eric genuinely does everything but TELL Kyle to leave, but Kyle absolutely will not leave! He ends up spending the night, he doesn’t leave so hard! I don’t even care that it all works out in the end and they’re in love--I am mortified by this behavior.

Eric’s apparently into it, though, so off we go! I don’t really feel one way or another about the age gap romance trope. However, I DO kind of feel a certain way about Kyle’s retelling of his very first age gap romance--are we supposed to feel like he’s focused on older men because he hasn’t processed the trauma of being groomed by his boss?!? Because that is a Whole Thing, if so. Not that I’m not there for it or anything! I was just surprised!

But ultimately, even though both Eric and Kyle profess to be interested specifically in an age gap romance, and both fantasize about it separately, they don’t really actualize any aspects of it in their actual romance. Eric fantasizes about “spoiling” Kyle, but he never really does. Kyle fantasizes about being “irresistable” to his older partner, such that they’d do anything to please him, but they never really act out this scenario together, either. Instead, they just kind of have normal--though excessive!--sex. They’re both pretty focused on edging, which honestly makes sense for Eric (less for Kyle), but otherwise they’re just a couple of normal dudes dating normal dudes.

The relationship angst is meant to come from both men secretly wanting to have a relationship, but neither man admitting it while they continue to act like friends with benefits. Maybe this is just me being unfamiliar with queer culture, but Bro. Is it really THAT hard to tell a sexual partner that you’ve caught feelings? Like, I get that it’s probably embarrassing and you’re upset that they might stop wanting to have sex with you, but Bro. Come on. Or was this maybe meant to be the relationship version of edging? That could be cool as a through-line, but I think we’d have needed some more hints at it for it to work.

I was surprised that none of this hidden turmoil really showed itself in the sex scenes. One of my favorite parts of Heated Rivalry is that you can see how Shane and Ilya are falling in love against their will by how they behave during their sex scenes, because although they both think they’re hiding it, they actually can’t. It’s cute and sweet and there would definitely have been room for it in this book, too. Like maybe they each simultaneously find themselves acting out that fantasy they’d both expressed, and then they have Big Feelings about it. Just… SOMETHING! If nothing else, it would have given them something to talk about!

I’ve felt like that about a couple of the books. Obviously Shane and Ilya have a ton to talk about, although another one of my favorite parts of Heated Rivalry is how it takes them about six years to realize it. Fabian and Ryan were kids together, so even though they have very different interests now that’s still plenty to build on. Troy and Harris work together. But I do not know what on earth Scott and Kip have to talk about (and that scene in which Kip is trying to talk to Scott about something he’s interested in and Scott shuts him down because he doesn’t care STILL pisses me off!), and I do not know what on earth Eric and Kyle have to talk about. Good thing that Eric and Scott are friends, and Kyle and Kip are friends. They can survive off of double dates!

Honestly, though? I give them eight months.

Game Changer Reviews:

1. Game Changer
2. Heated Rivalry
3. Tough Guy
4. Common Goal
5. Role Model (coming next week!)

P.S. View all my reviews

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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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I Have Discovered Gay Hockey Smut

Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I apparently started reading in the wrong order, because I was actually supposed to read Game Changer first, but whatever.

I’m actually more mad that I’ve been loudly cheering for hockey and reading smut for YEARS, and nobody has loved me enough to tell me that this entire book series of genuine hockey smut--bonus points: GAY hockey smut!--even exists! I had to rely on TIKTOK to clue me in, so I guess my parasocial relationship with TikTok has officially reached the next level. Thank you, TikTok, for knowing what I like before I know it myself! I checked this out of the library as an audiobook, and spent much of December plopping myself down with a big armful of cross-stitching next to my husband as soon as he fired up his Playstation and turning this on "so we could listen together." At first he was mortified, but it didn't take long before he was as in the weeds as I was with Shane and Ilya, and now I'm very much looking forward to watching the TV series together. Breaking down those gender essentialist stereotypes one tropey romance at a time!

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My two favorite things about Heated Rivalry are that 1) it has a genuine plot, and isn’t just a bunch of sex scenes pasted together with mildly plotty paragraphs in between them, and 2) there is actual hockey contained within. Not, like, a ton of actual hockey, because even I understand that, given the extended timeframe of the book, full play-by-plays of every game our heroes played during that time would be too much (but if someone wanted to make some fan videos attempting it, I’d watch them!), but enough to flesh the characters out as actual hockey players, and enough to make the game of hockey an actual part of the book. Because my personal belief is that, if you’re reading a hockey romance, you want to read romance and YOU WANT TO READ HOCKEY, and I will never understand how a self-proclaimed hockey romance (*cough, cough* Icebreaker *cough*) can manage to have absolute zero hockey therein.

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Since I am now apparently one of the Old Ones, and have been known to regale my fourth-wave daughters with stories about the bad old days when everyone was in the closet and being queer felt so fraught, one of the things that interests me the most about Heated Rivalry is how, by choosing a setting of male professional sports, the book is able to harken back to those bad old days and the experience of feeling actively in danger simply because of one’s sexual identity. Like, yes, I know homophobia is still out there (though not really in the circles in which my own kids run, hence why I feel the need to regularly trauma dump some lived experience truth bombs on them), but only in male professional sports does it really feel Brokeback Mountain-level these days. So setting the book series in the world of the NHL is a great way to access those Brokeback Mountain-levels of angst again, albeit with, at least in Heated Rivalry, a happy-ish ending.

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And of course, since I’ve also been bitching about this issue for years, finding out that in Heated Rivalry the REAL Big Bad is the NHL itself is right up my alley. Bring back Pride jerseys, you buncha assholes! I swear the administration’s bullshit toxic masculinity is so out of touch with their fan base that it’s ridiculous. Like, they genuinely thought that their fans would overlook the fact that the Golden Knights’ entirely mid goalie is a rapist?!? Just the fact that there are no out NHL players should make the administration realize that something about its playing environment is very, very wrong and they ought to treat that like the mental health crisis that it surely is. But nope! We’ve apparently just got to be hockey fans as best we can while they actively act like they’re playing in 1950, not 2025.

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I did think that the book was making too big a meal out of the “rivalry” part of Heated Rivalry. Yes, you can easily convince me that the gay part is an issue, because hey, toxically masculine NHL, but the rivalry? Um, lots of players have good friends from different teams? How could they not, when players get traded so often? And when there are regular goodwill events like All-Star Weekend and the Olympics? I just didn’t buy it as an issue, and every time a character tried to act like it was an issue it fell flat for me. Shane and Ilya had all the reasons in the world to be best buddies right from the start, AND it would have made their years-long situationship soooo much easier. Like, why wouldn’t they be friends, as top young players and top draftees and with so much in common? If they couldn’t figure out how to make it happen before, then the All-Star Weekend during which they were finally on the same team should have been the time! They publicly realize that they actually get along great! They make no secret of exchanging numbers! Whenever they play each other ever afterwards, they make a point of chatting during warm-ups, during which the announcers will fall all over themselves to say, “That’s what sportsmanship is all about, y’all.” They could even do the cute thing where their teams start fighting and one of them skates over, grabs the other by the scruff of their jersey, and skates them away from the scrum. The fans LOVE that stuff! And then after the game, their teammates are all, “Hey, you coming out with us?”, and each of them replies, “Nah, I’m hanging with Shane/Ilya tonight,” and that’s that.

Anyway, now onto Game Changer!

P.S. View all my reviews.

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I Ate a Pineapple Pork Bun in New York City and I Think I Will Never Be The Same Again

If you thought that bad weather would keep the tourists inside, you would be wrong. We will see all the sights in New York City no matter how cold it is!

We got so turned around attempting to find the right subway line to get us to Brooklyn that we ended up near Rockefeller Plaza, so we figured that we might as well walk over and see if the tree was still up.

It was!

And then the big kid saw the line to get into FAO Schwartz and was all, "Toys?!? TOYS!!!", so somehow we ended up doing that, too.

Of course, as soon as we got into the store and she realized that it was essentially just a mass of wall-to-wall people she wanted to immediately bail, but I said, "Come on, we're already in. Might as well power through."

The first week in January is actually a terrible time to visit FAO Schwartz regardless of the crowds--they were so picked over from holiday shopping, I guess, that although all the shelves were full, they were full with just, like, one or two products per brand, basically. Great if you want a goat cheese Jellycat or a Schleich brachiosaurus painted to look like it works there (which, okay, is kind of cute...)--

--but I kind of wanted to look at *all* the Jellycats, you know? Not just 1,000 copies of the worst one.

Whatever. At least it was warm inside, and it turned out that the subway station we wanted was right near there, after all!

On to DUMBO!

Technically, all people actually wanted to do on this day was walk around Chinatown and eat stuff. But I tacked on first walking across the Brooklyn Bridge TO Chinatown because, come on, it's RIGHT THERE!, and then, well, I tacked on first finding that one perfect photo spot that everybody goes to in DUMBO because if you're at the Brooklyn Bridge, well, then... I mean come on, it's RIGHT THERE!

Just us and 1,000 other tourists seeing the sights!

If you look veeeery closely at the photo below, you can even see a tiny Statue of Liberty. We really saw everything on this trip!

There she is again! 

Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge probably isn't something I need to do again, although I would like to catch a sunrise there, but it was a super easy and pleasant walk that puts you right into an interesting part of Lower Manhattan, a short walk from Wall Street on one side and Chinatown on the other.

We chose Chinatown!

And yes, I did force us a few blocks out of our way just so I could embody that Lumineers song.

It is SO hard for me to narrow down all the places I want to see when I visit somewhere:

But we did our best!

We bought buns and milk tea from Mei Lai Wah--

--and I need to tell you that this pineapple pork bun is the best thing that I have ever eaten in my life:

How do they make that crunchy pineapple topping? It was super crunchy, but it wasn't super sweet so it's not sugar. It was SO good, and I am devastated that I'm not eating it again right now.

We had no organized plan for what little shops and restaurants from my map we actually hit and in what order, so we got a lot of sightseeing done simply by wandering back and forth and around and around doing and seeing everything in the most inefficient manner possible:

Jin Mei Dumplings, cash only and window service only, but you get 15 delicious dumplings for $5!!!

I didn't see a tenth of what I wanted to see by the time we absolutely had to head out, which is always the way, sigh, and I guess it leaves plenty of reasons to come back one day.

Another place I'm coming back to: Madison Square Garden, where I once again managed to score the absolute worst seats in the house!

This game ended up being kind of heartbreaking, because I had to watch Shesterkin get injured (and he's still not back!), and then go on to watch the Rangers flat-out lose to the Mammoth, but at least they scored a couple of points in the meantime--

Here's a spot that I haven't yet made it to even once: the Empire State Building! I just like to look at it from the outside and imagine King Kong climbing it:

Fun fact: the best part of our trip is yet to come!

P.S. Come find me over on my Facebook page, where I often talk about my adventures, experiments, misadventures, and yet more misadventures as I'm doing them!

Fetishizing the Concept of "Hockey Player" Does Not Make a Book Hockey Smut. There Has to Actually BE Hockey In It!

Yes, I am also STILL slogging through A Court of Silver Flames! Not right this second, though, because my Heated Rivalry audiobook just came in...

Mister Hockey by Lia Riley
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

If it’s supposed to be hockey smut, then why is there no hockey?

Like, yes, there *is* a hockey player in the book, but 1) he not only never plays hockey in the book, but he also never so much as puts on his uniform or steps out onto the ice, and 2) he’s pretty much already decided to retire by the time the book opens, so is he even really a hockey player in the official professional sense? That present tense is barely hanging in there!

Without any actual hockey, the book instead becomes smut that revolves around the simple fetishization of “hockey player” as object, which is fine but not what I thought I was going to be reading. Jed doesn’t do anything particularly hockey-forward, so he’s basically just embodying the concept of hockey player in this book. There was a second, when we learn that Breezy hid all her Jed merch before she let him in the door so he wouldn’t find out she was a superfan of him in particular, that I thought this idea of fetishizing the concept of hockey player would be an important topic in the book, perhaps one that the book ends up speaking to and complicating and making us think about what it is to both love hockey and to enact a fandom that makes sexy CapCuts of players and calls going to games “visiting the boy aquarium.” But no. Breezy doesn’t really spend any time thinking about the man vs. the myth and what it means to love one vs. the other, other than to mention in passing that this was easily resolved (in the right direction, of course!), and even when her previous lack of full disclosure causes her to be the one that Jed accuses of selling his private information to reporters, it’s not really about that, as Jed himself later said, and it’s solved with basically zero effort on either side.

@gasquatchmama Ladies, I think they're on to us...it's quite a show. #hockey #hockeywarmups #stretching #hockeystretches #fatherfigure ♬ Father Figure - George Michael

Or rather, Breezy puts forth a LOT of effort, but for some reason Riley decides to make Breezy’s actions irrelevant to the solution? And also, that podcast confession is the cringiest thing a romance character could possibly do, and if someone did that to me, I don’t care how blameless they were for whatever I’d accused them of, I’d never speak to them again. I’d burn their face out of photos and try to forget they’d ever existed, solely for my own sanity. Honestly, I might have to murder them and then invent time travel and go back in time and murder all their grandparents just to make sure I’d erased their entire timeline.

I do like that both Breezy and Jed are portrayed as kind of stupid, making basic jokes and inane puns and bad decisions and rolling way too hard on commitment without letting nearly enough time pass. There’s a lid for every pot! The strongest part of the book was their meet-cute through their first sex scene, when I could pretend that the stupid things they said or thought were just because of nerves and their awkward chemistry could be read as adorable rather than off-putting. It was only after that when I looked at my hoopla app, saw I was something like 70% through the entire book, and went, “Uh, oh…” There was plenty to flesh out to make the book longer, resolve some of these issues, and basically just carry its weight. The conflict with Breezy’s mom was just abandoned with an unrealistic insta-fix, the same with the mean library director but in the other direction, Jed’s brother remained mostly off-screen, and, oh, right… NOBODY PLAYED HOCKEY!!!

@more_than_parents Boy aquarium anyone? 🤣#boyaquarium #hockey #hockeyromance ♬ Pony - Ginuwine

I did appreciate the attention paid to the issue of concussions in sports, because as a fan of hockey I’m very concerned that the players stay safe (and I wish they’d wear their neck guards!), but I did NOT appreciate the way that the wider impact of Jed’s brother’s concussion injury is portrayed. Jed announces that he’s solved the problem of his SIL trying to sell his private information by… paying off her house? I get that money does solve problems, but not ONLY money! Can you not, like, talk to the SIL about, you know, your feelings and her feelings and your boundaries and what she needs for her family to thrive economically and emotionally and maybe have some therapy and commit to spending more time together so she’s not isolated and offer to take your nephews for a few weeks so they can have quality time with a male role model? No? Just… money? Okay…

Oh, and I'm not buying for a second that an independent bookstore focusing solely on children's titles is going to thrive in this day and age. Sorry, Breezy, but you're about to have a hobby business propped up by your boyfriend's professional hockey money.

P.S. View all my reviews 

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Check out My DIY Flyers Logo Hoodie

 IT IS SO GREAT, RIGHT?!?

Remember a couple of months ago when I went to a Philadelphia Flyers game and sulked because the merch was too expensive and vowed to violate their intellectual property rights and make my OWN Flyers merch for myself, thank you very much?

Well, I achieved my dream, and it turned out awesome!

The key to the entire enterprise is the Cricut that my partner surprised me with on Christmas. I still need his help with the graphic design, because it works best if you do your templates in another (*cough, cough* better *cough*) graphic design program and save them as svg files to just export into the Cricut Design Space program, but once you've got that, everything else is a dream:

Honestly, my partner's inspiration for this gift was probably watching me, starting this time last year, hand cut a billion applique pieces for the eclipse buntings that I sold the snot out of last year (I miss you, total solar eclipse!). Because the Cricut cuts fabric, even fiddly little shapes, and it cuts it perfectly, just as smooth as butter:

There were a couple of bits in those tight turns where it didn't quite get the full curve, but it was easy to snip:

After that, I just had to baste everything down with fusible webbing and applique it on!

I appliqued it to a Goodwill hoodie, and it's my newest favorite thing:

I keep waiting for strangers to admire it, but 1) I don't go anywhere, 2) I try not to talk to people when I DO go places, and 3) you probably can't actually figure out that it's homemade unless I tell you, which I won't because see 2).

It was such a success, however, that even though I don't yet have another Goodwill hoodie to place it on, I'm already working on version #2, the Flyers Pride logo:

And then I might see which of my favorite teams end up in the Stanley Cup playoffs and make them my next DIY logo. The Stars are playing so well this season, so fingers crossed!

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