Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Vintage buttons

Remember all the great buttons I got a couple of weeks ago? The sparkly ones from my mother-in-law are wonderful, mostly because of their significance. She brought me a photo yesterday of herself in the dress they adorned forty years ago. She laughed and cringed when I told her they could officially be classified as "vintage." Here she is in the dress, on New Year's Eve '67...
I love the hair and the dress! So very 60's chic!

A true adventure...

Saturday was an important day on the letterboxing calendar. It's known to many as National Plant a Letterbox Day, and over 800 boxes were planted and logged on Atlas Quest that day, more than twice as many as were planted on the day last year. It's also the day of the annual LbSe (Letterboxing Southeast) gathering at Stone Mountain. This was the fifth annual gathering, and over 100 people showed up! One bunch came from all the way from Seattle as part of a cross-country field trip. Lots of folks camped and stayed in nearby hotels, boxing on Friday and Sunday, leaving Saturday for socializing and exchanging stamps. Knowing the boys wouldn't find a whole lot of joy in hanging around the picnic ground all day, however, we broke our day up.

We hit Stone Mountain running and managed one box before the 11am gathering time. That box turned into our greatest letterboxing adventure to date. As usual, once we got to the part of the clues that took us off trail, Jason (yeah, using trail names throughout this blog is just getting too cumbersome) went after the box. With the boys as young as they are, it seems safer to keep them on the path, avoiding potential meetings with forest dwellers and itch-inducing flora. After about 15 minutes, however, I began to worry. I cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled for him. No answer. Again. No answer. I joined the boys in kicking the damp sand on the path, trying to distract myself and them. A couple of minutes later, I yelled again, and still no answer. At this point, I was imagining all sorts of horrible things, all involving me contacting the park rangers. Nicky piped up with, "Where is he, Mom? I'm about to cry," which of course almost induced the same reaction in dear old Mom.

And then it hit me. We were both carrying cell phones. Duh. I called; he answered.

"Where are you?"

"Trying to find you! I found the box, and I'm lost."

We decided to hang up, and I'd continue shouting for him periodically, even though he hadn't heard any of my yells so far. Eventually, he showed up, and we sat down at the nearby picnic table with the box. The box that says, in very large letters, GEOCACHE across the side. Crap! It's not a letterbox at all. Sure enough, it's full of dollar store trinkets. I sent Jason off with our letterboxing stuff, so he could [hopefully] find the real letterbox and stamp in there without hiking back and forth twice more. About 35 minutes later, he showed up back on the path, and we went to picnic with a hundred other boxers, a couple of whom had found that same geocache and box earlier in the morning.

The rest of the day was, while not uneventful, definitely less excitingly nervewracking. We met lots of old and new friends (all of who were wonderful), met with Jason's brother & his wife who happened to be at the park that day, found two more letterboxes, struck out on three other boxes, and ended with a pizza dinner amongst like-minded outdoorsy artistic types. At the end of it all, the boys declared it a Great Day.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Crochet 'til it hurts!

That's been an item on my To Do List (literally) for the past couple weeks. And I've done it! Today was Blue Giraffe's last day of school, and I've been working on nothing but teacher gifts for the past week. Well, longer, really, when you take into account the preschool teacher gifts for Little Turtle last week. Working with plarn is fun, but if you overdo it, it really puts a strain on your hands. I have 5 more preemie hats to finish that need to be mailed out by Friday, and then I'll need to put the hooks away for a week or so to rest my right hand. So, without further ado, some of the fruits of my labor. I think it was totally worth it, and it really has been fun.

This is the finished afghan for BG's former teacher:

Here's the plarn purse for his current teacher:(Isn't that button awesome? You may recognize it from the stash Mom gave me. It's from a set that were handcrafted in Africa.)

This is one of the water bottle carriers I made for two of his resource teachers:

In further crochet news, my friend, Heather, and I are seriously looking into selling our plarn bags. She would concentrate on the tote size, whereas I would do the purses. As she says, that arrangement plays to our strengths. Besides, wherever we go with our bags, people ask if they can buy one. We both have lists of people waiting for information while we come up with our own patterns and figure everything else out. Keep an eye here for news! I'll post as soon as we've worked out a plan.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Who's got the button?

Me!!!

For Mother's Day, along with a great Willow Tree figurine, my parents gave me a bunch of buttons. These were from my mom's stash and were given with the idea that I can use them on the purses I'm crocheting. What a great assortment! Those ones on the cards are specialty buttons Mom obtained at craft fairs. (If you want one on your purse, just know there will be a nice price increase!)



When my mother-in-law heard I was collecting fun buttons, she grabbed her stash for me to look through, too. I am thrilled with these! Look at those sparkly ones. (The picture so does not do them justice.) I asked her where they came from, and she said they were on the shoulders of her favorite black crepe dress in the late '60's. I think I'm going to have to hold those aside for a special project. I'm ecstatic that she entrusted them to me.

Plastic Evolution

A photo tour of my latest plarn purse:

Step one: Gather bags! These were donated by my mother-in-law and father-in-law. Thanks!


Step Two: Cut the bags into strips/loops and ball them up. I call this "spinning plarn." For this bag, I estimated I'd need about 20 bags. (I was spot-on, too!)



Step Three: Crochet! I made this design up as I went along. Since I've been using free patterns from the internet for previous bags, I can't sell them. (Those patterns are the property of the designers and can't be used for profit by anyone else.) I'm pretty happy with this one!



Step Four: Add embellishments. For this one, I used Bernat's Bling Bling yarn, and if you look closely, you'll see an "A" charm. The recipient of this bag's name starts with A, so I thought it would be a fun touch.



This is a nice, summery bag, the perfect size to hold wallet, phone, keys, errands list, and a few odds and ends (juice boxes for the kids?). I hope she likes it!

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Mother's Day - Part II

(See Part I here.)

Saturday night was interesting, to say the least. We knew heavy storms would be coming through, and they were heavy, all right. Fredbird woke up to them shortly after 3am, even with the air conditioner, refrigerator, and dehumidifier running in the hotel room. He turned on the TV and woke us all up. Rotation was being picked up by the radar in our area, and "possible tornadic activity" was rampant. Those little lines that point out the paths of what they think might be tornadoes were running straight through the intersection where our hotel sat.

Tornados freak me out. Twister (the movie) didn't help a whole lot, either. I held it together, though, and put a big blanket down in the tub, stashing all the extra pillows in the bathroom, too. We were ready to run in there at the first sign of a tornado in the immediate vicinity. After a while, though, the majority of the storms passed, and the boys and I went back to sleep. Fredbird stayed up most of the night, watching the reports and the radar, just to be safe. He's a good guy. The boys, as usual, were up at 6:15, and I managed to keep them mostly quiet for a couple of hours, but finally gave up and told Fredbird it was hopeless. :)

We drove to Callaway Gardens, and wow, what a gorgeous spot. I've only been once before, about 15 years ago, and that was for their Christmas Light thingy at night, so it was a very different experience. The weather was beyond gorgeous, too. The storms had pushed out all the haze, leaving puffy white clouds and a great wind that rustled the treetops. The letterboxing on Sunday was much more successful than the day before, and we found our first box within a few minutes. (We left a hitchhiker there, which was picked up the same day!) On our way back to the car, we saw a snake basking in a pool by a waterfall. I pointed it out to the guys and quickly backed away (we were on some decking well above it). Little Turtle said, "But Mom, you're afraid of snakes." "Yes," I replied, "that's why I'm back here. Can we go now?" I have never seen a snake that close up without glass involved. Compared to snakes, tornadoes are like a nice spring day. I don't do snakes.

Next was the wonderful birds of prey show, on the way to which we crossed over a bridge where people throw [appropriate] food down to the turtles and ducks. Aren't they cute??? Now there's a reptile I can love. We also checked out the butterfly habitat before going after a couple more boxes. One was an easy find on a lovely little trail. The other, however...not so much. It was hidden near a stump next to a heavily populated walkway. We were there well over 30 minutes, waiting for breaks in the "traffic" and digging like heck in the leaves. We never did find that darned thing, but I connected online later with another boxer who had found it that day. She said it was difficult, but it was there. Dangit, another bust!

Our last box at Callaway Gardens was on another great little trail near the restaurant. (Here are the boys waiting on the bench while Fredbird retrieves the box.) After finding that one, we drove back through LaGrange for some Starbucks (poor Fredbird was a bit wiped after his long night & needed caffeine for the upcoming drive) and headed toward home.

I had remembered reading clues for the Newnan area before our trip that mentioned being in some part of the Coweta County Fairgrounds. We figured this might be our best bet for a hiding place for the Coweta box, so Fredbird handed me his Blackberry, and I searched out the information. We ended up at the Nature Center at the fairgrounds, finding two more boxes, and planting one of our own.

Sorry if this has been a bit long-winded, and if you've made it this far, thanks for sharing our weekend with us! I can't remember a Mother's Day I've enjoyed more. We left plenty of boxes in the area untouched, too, so there's plenty of fodder for a return trip!

Mother's Day Outdoors - Part I

You may remember that I asked for a weekend of letterboxing for Mother's Day. My guys came through!

We left Friday morning, stopping on the way to pick up my mom and drop her off at the MARTA station. She's visiting my sister in Virginia this week. Sis just finished her second year of law school - you go girl!!

In keeping with the series of boxes I'm carving to document where the names of Georgia counties originated, I mapped our path and learned that we would be traveling through Coweta County on the way to Callaway Gardens, and our hotel would be in Troup County. (Callaway Gardens itself is in Harris County, where The C Team were kind enough to plant a box for me four years ago.) We stopped in Newnan with a list and Google map of various parks in that city and quickly discovered why those parks haven't previously been planted with letterboxes. The first small park was nothing more than a poorly-maintained ball field, and the second was a large complex of fields. Unlike similar parks in Gwinnett County, however, there was no walking trail surrounding the fields, and thus no place that would make a reasonably accessible - yet hidden - niche. The third (and last) try was a beautiful small park that reminded us a lot of Thrasher Park in Norcross. (See the "kids" playing on its great playground?) Unfortunately, like Thrasher Park, this one was so well manicured that it was obvious any box would be found immediately by maintenance workers. We decided to bag the box for the time being and brainstorm for a place to hide it on our way home Sunday. On the way out of Newnan, we pulled into a parking lot where the boys bought me a Webkinz at Hallmark. They're quite excited that I'm on Webkinz now, and I am the proud owner of a Leopard Lizard named Henrietta.

Our next stop was in LaGrange, to see if we could check in early at the hotel. We did, and we were given a list of parks at the front desk, so we had lunch and hit the road in search of a hidey hole for Governor Troup. The only park that was listed as having "hiking" had campsites, fishing and a horse trail, but no hiking in sight. The folks manning the camp office had no idea what we were talking about when we asked about hiking trails. Bust. So we drove around a bit, following our noses, and found a perfect spot!

After a nap at the hotel, we headed to Roosevelt State Park to check on the Charles Harris box and try to find some other letterboxes in the area. The box (and a couple of others) are hidden near President Roosevelt's favorite picnic spot, Dowdell's Knob. We could certainly see why he loved it so much. (That's us at Dowdell's knob in the photo. Check out that view!)

We found the Harris box without problem but had to give up before finding the other box on this section of trail. Thunder started to roll, and since we were nearly a mile away from the car, we figured it might not be safe to stay out in the woods. Dangit! Back at Dowdell's Knob, we waited around a while for people to clear out, and retrieved the box hidden there. We were dismayed to find that a geocacher had found the box and taken the hand-carved stamp. In its place was a nut like hundreds of others we'd seen on the ground that day. Whether the nut was left by the 'cacher or by someone else we'll never know, but it was so disappointing. I hated that I'd have to go home and write to the person who had been so proud of that stamp. (In the clues, she mentioned that she was particularly proud of it.)

By this time, the thunder had started up again, and we were all exhausted and a bit cranky about our lack of boxing success. We headed back to LaGrange for dinner, baths (grimy kids!), and our beds.

Friday, May 9, 2008

Edged Out

I did manage to finish the Through Any Window baby afghan I was working on. (During Dancing With the Stars, if I'm not mistaken.) The edging was such a PITA to figure out once I ran out of yarn, I have to share how it ended up.

I ended up doing: *2 sc, ch 3, sk next st*, making sure the 2sc lined up with the 2hdc in that color in previous rounds.

Letterboxilicious

I've been getting boxes ready for our trip this weekend. Two traditional boxes and a hitchhiker will be finding their way into the Georgia wild. I've been intrigued by the idea of wrapping the boxes in camouflage duct tape as a way to keep them from being quite so obvious. Unfortunately, Jo-Ann's doesn't carry it, and I don't particularly feel like driving to Bass Pro Shops just to buy tape. Jo-Ann's does carry colored duct tape, though, and I bought some brown, figuring it'll help with the camo situation.

I didn't realize, however, that these letterboxes would make me so hungry. The tape is exactly the color of melting Hershey's milk chocolate. Mmmmm...letterboxes...

Monday, May 5, 2008

Summer Flower

Hey look! The cute boy afghan is almost done. I had it nearly completed on Saturday and ran out of yarn about 3/4 of the way through the picot border. Dangit! I hate making picots anyway, so it hurt to rip all those puppies out. The blanket's been folded up staring at me accusingly since then, waiting for me to figure out how I'm going to edge it. It's also in desperate need of some blocking...the twists are hypnotizing me...must look away...

So, anyway, to distract myself from the edging dilemma, I started on the round ripple baby afghan I'm doing for Blue Giraffe's first grade teacher. I chose this pattern by Monica Zenberg and decided on what I call "summery-modern-girlie colors." I love the limey, kiwi-y, and sagey greens that are fashionable right now, especially mixed with pink. Here's how it looks so far. I love the pop of green. (Thanks, Mom, for picking out the wonderful, soft pink for me!) I also love how it's turning out to look more like a flower than the stars or webs round ripples typically resemble.

The very exciting crochet world happening for me this weekend was joining Ravelry.com. That place is awesome! I had to wait two weeks for my invitation, but it was well worth it. (They limit sign-ups to a certain number per day in order to keep their servers from blowing...smart way to control growth, IMO.) It's a networking site for knitters and crocheters, but its main function is as a personal repository for your patterns, projects, hooks/needles, yarn stash, works in mind, etc. Wonderful place! I love seeing everything I'm working on at a glance, and I love the idea of having a record of what yarns I used in which projects, hook sizes, etc. I'm "hooked!" (Ha-ha.) If you're a knitter or crocheter, I highly recommend signing up and checking it out.