Bag with Crocheted Hexagons

Loosely based on this pattern for making a shopping bag, and borrowing from this pattern on Ravelry for a hexagon blanket, a new project bag was born.

See the toy ferret and bunny rabbit?  Those belong to The Amazing Therapy Dog Libby, but I actually plan on filling it with a sweater project and swapping yarn for the toys.  Its strap is a knitted icord, and the bag itself is two pieces of coordinating fabrics sewn back to back, folded in half, and seamed together.

Several weeks ago, I was making hexagons from sock yarn, but did not have enough sock yarn scraps to make an actual blanket.   Instead of chucking the project, I used the 20 multi-colored hexagons as decoration for the bag front.  Bling was added in the form of buttons and charms.

The little sheep buttons in the middle of a couple of hexagons make me smile.

Going to Ireland in Two Days!

Sixty-four travelers from the western slope of Colorado will be visiting Ireland next week, and I will be on the tour bus, too.  We will arrive in Dublin on October 25 and coach over to Adare, about and hour and a half west of Dublin by coach.  Here is where we will be staying -- the Adare Castle in Limerick, Ireland:


This photo of Adare Castle is courtesy of TripAdvisor

This site says:

The castle was probably begun in the 1190s and initially comprised a large square tower and an enclosing D-shaped fosse, together with a hall block to the south in an outer ward.

Villas surround the 650 acre castle property, each with three bedrooms to a villa.  Our group will share these modern villas with all the comforts of a 5 star hotel.  There is a posh restaurant inside the castle, a clubhouse and bar. Golfing is one of the highlights of Ireland, and this property contains the Adare Golf Club championship golf course commissioned by the Earl of Dunraven in the 1890's, but Linda and I will likely be searching for yarn in the little town of Adare during our "off hours."

We will make day trips, and Linda and I will extend our stay for three days, ending our journey in Dublin.   We will be there on Halloween night, staying at the Wynn Hotel in the Temple Bar area, which is apparently a real party place.

Day trips include visiting the cliffs of Moehr;

and a visit to a woolen mill!!

Also included on the docket is a trip to Kilkenny and Bunratty with a medieval-style dinner in the Bunratty Castle in the evening.

Then there is Dingle, and  a tour of the Dingle Peninsula on the way to the Blasket Island Center. Dingle was the setting for the movie "Ryan's Daughter" and is a market town and fishing port.

And of course we are going to Blarney and the Blarney Castle where the magic stone gives the gift of eloquence.  I don't think that we'll be allowed to kiss that stone because of new sanitary regulations.  But here is a picture of me kissing it in 2005, when it was still allowed:

(at Blarney Castle, Nancy with guide in 2005)

Kissing that old stone was not for the faint of heart, so my Scrabble buddy Darlene took this picture because she had no desire to stand in the line, kiss that stone, or get that mythical gift of the gab.

Enough for now, but more pictures upon our return from this trip sponsored by Chamber Discoveries.

Excerpted from the book "Peace Like a River"

by Leif Enger:

When I was born to Helen and Jeremiah Land, in 1951, my lungs refused to kick in. 

My father wasn't in the delivery room or even in the building; the halls of Wilson Hospital were close and short, and Dad had gone out to pace in the damp September wind. He was praying, rounding the block for the fifth time, when the air quickened.  He opened his eyes and discovered he was running - sprinting across the grass toward the door. 

"How'd you know?" I adored this story, made him tell it all the time. 

"God told me you were in trouble." 

"Out loud? Did you hear Him?" 

"Nope, not out loud. But He made me run, Reuben. I guess I figured it out on the way."

I had, in fact, been delivered some minutes before. My mother was dazed, propped against soggy pillows, unable to comprehend what Dr. Animas Nokes was telling her.

"He still isn't breathing, Mrs. Land."

"Give him to me!"

To this day I'm glad Dr. Nokes did not hand me over on demand. Tired as my mother was, who knows when she would've noticed? Instead he laid me down and rubbed me hard with a towel.. He pounded my back; he rolled me over and massaged my chest. He breathed air into my mouth and nose -- my chest rose, fell with a raspy whine, stayed fallen. Years later Dr. Nokes would tell my brother Davy that my delivery still disturbed his sleep. He's never seen a child with such swampy lungs. 

When Dad skidded into the room, Dr Nokes was sitting on the side of the bed holding my mother's hand. She was wailing -- I picture her as an old woman here, which is funny, since I was never to see her as one --and old Nokes was attempting to ease her grief. It was unavoidable, he was saying; nothing could be done; perhaps it was for the best. 

I was lying uncovered on a metal table across the room. 

Dad lifted me gently. I was very clean from all that rubbing, and I was gray and beginning to cool. A little clay boy is what I was. 

"Breathe," Dad said. 

I lay in his arms. 

Dr Nokes said "Jeremiah, it has been twelve minutes." 

"Breathe!" The picture I see is of Dad, brown hair short and wild, giving this order as if he expected noting but odedience. 

Dr. Nokes approached him. "Jeremiah. There would be brain damage now. His lungs can't fill." 

Dad leaned down, laid me back on the table, took off his jacket and wrapped me in it -- a black canvas jacket with a quilted lining, I have it still. He left my face uncovered. 

"Sometimes," said Dr. Nokes, "there is something unworkable in one of the organs. A ventricle that won't pump correctly. A liver that poisons the blood." Dr. Nokes was a kindly and reasonable man. "Lungs that can't expand to take in air. In these cases," said Dr. Nokes, "we must trust in the Almighty to do what is best."  At which Dad stepped across and smote Dr. Nokes with a right hand, so that the doctor went down and lay on his side with his pupils unfocused. As Mother cried out, Dad turned back to me, a clay child wrapped in a canvas coat, and said in a normal voice, "Reuben Land, in the name of the living God I am telling you to breathe."

... excerpted not only from Leif Enger's book PEACE LIKE A RIVER, but also from the book AT THE STILL POINT: A LITERARY GUIDE TO PRAYER IN ORDINARY TIME by Sarah Arthur