Mike Row... the adventure continues...

Mike Row has now visited a toilet seat museum and a little cache called Quacker State.

The toilet seat museum is located in San Antonio in the garage of a Octogenarian (possibly Nonagenarian) ex-plumber who displays over 1000 decorated toilet seats. Quacker State is a mystery cache full of ducks... and the mystery is it's exact location... so who knows...

Both of these caches are an easy day trip from where I live... so now I have a few interesting places for weekend trips. I can't wait to see where geocaching will take Mike next.

New Pattern: Buckeye Necklace and some other stuff I've been working on.

Buckeye Necklace

I made this necklace by simply collecting buckeye pods and removing the seeds. We don't have the Ohio Buckeyes around here... I believe the pods I used came from a Mexican Buckeye tree. These trees actually aren't related... but the seeds look similar when removed from the pod. In folklore buckeye seeds are used a magical amulets and good luck charms.

All I did was drill a small hole through the seeds and string them onto crotchet thread.

I then simply did the chain stitch until the spot where I wanted the first seed to be. (about 40-50 chains)

Then I slipped the seed into place and did a chain stitch around the seed and securing it in place.

I continued crocheting 15-10 stitches in between seeds and then securing them in place until I had used all the seeds I wanted to use.

Then I crochet the other side of the necklace (another 40-50 chains) before fastening off.

This is a very adaptable pattern... if you can call it a pattern. I used 5 seeds on this one... but I also made necklaces with 1 or 3 seeds as well. This is more of an idea really... and I wanted to share it... and the luck of the buckeye as well.

Here is another idea I have been working on. I saw a cool crochet covered rock here... and then finally adapted a pattern for a cell phone charm that you can find here.
My last little necklace I adapted from one of my own patterns... the Octopus Finger Puppet. All I did was use crochet thread and a 1.5mm hook and made it exactly the same way as the puppet.

Cheers,
Jenn

Mike Row and the Little Red Creature

I just made a new travel bug to send out. His name is Little Red Creature and his mission is to travel from geocache to geocache making people smile. I will probably drop him off soon and send him on his way.... so here are a few photos before he goes.

I also have my first photo of Mike Row on his adventure. As far as I know he is still in Texas right now but soon he will be traveling to the Burning Man Festival. In the above photo Mike appears to be bait in a trap designed to trap geocachers.

Cheers,
Jenn

New Pattern: Octopus Finger Puppet

Materials
F hook
worsted weight yarn (I used cotton)
tapestry needle

Stitches:
Ch - Chain
Sl st - slip stitch
SC - Single Crochet
Inc - Single crochet 2 stitches into one
SC 2tog - Single crochet two stitches together

Round 1: SC 6 stitches into a magic ring. Pull tight (6)
Round 2: *SC, Inc* repeat 3 times to complete round (9)
Round 3: *SC, SC, Inc* repeat 3 times to complete round (12)
Round 4 and 5: SC in each stitch around (12)
Round 6: *SC, SC 2 tog* repeat 4 times to complete round (8)
Round 7: *SC into next stitch, ch 8, SC into second stitch from the hook and the remaining 6 stitches* repeat this 8 times to make the legs. Sl st into the first stitch of the first leg and fasten off.
Weave in ends and sew two eyes.