Crocheting an Agility Ladder

Speed Kills Lace

                            

         Lace for crocheting into rope       plastic sheets cut into strips and holes punched

Speed and Agility Ladder

I have heard the phrase speed kills often in sports, in particular in basketball, swimming, and soccer.  If you are faster than the other competitors, than you don’t necessarily need as much skill.  The idea being that an athlete who is faster than others has the ability to either take more time with a shot or pace yourself, so you have energy left to burn on the last lap.   

Our oldest son has been interested in soccer since he was three years old.  He will watch soccer games with my husband and me.  His favorite team is Real Madrid, probably because his favorite player is Ronaldo.  He loves watching how fast his feet move, watching him fake out the other players, and he thinks Ronaldo is really cool.  Abby Wambach is probably a close second for him. I think she might beat Ronaldo as his favorite if we could watch her games more often. He was so excited when we found an instructional video by her on heading the ball that he now goofs around by heading the ball for fun.

 

Our oldest son went to a soccer camp recently where they introduced him to a speed and agility ladder.  After the camp he talked to us about getting one for him.  I started looking around, comparing prices and brands.  What I found is that they were all out of our price range.  So I starting researching to see if there was a way we could construct one for him.  All instructions I found call for the use of rope and the rope we have is covered in grease from repairs my husband does on vehicles.

 

 Then a thought pops in my head, “the giant spool of lace could be crocheted into rope”.

 

I then assembled the pieces necessary to make his agility ladder.  He has used it many times now and says he enjoys it as he is panting for breath at the end of a drill.

 

Materials

Lace – left over from an unfinished project of a friend     0.00

Plastic sheets- from a shelf of my father-in-law (he thought I could do “something” with it)                                            0.00

Hole punch-                                                                     1.00

Crochet hook- purchased for another project years ago 0.00

Total cost                                                                             

                                                                                       1.00

Grannies Necklace

Grannies Necklace

My kids Grannie thinks a lot, about everything.  Everything she does screams, loudly, about the amount of thought she puts into her gifts for others; the work ethic she puts into her job, the care she takes in selecting Christmas present for her grandkids, even her battle to have the wrapping paper not ripe in shipping.  I am convinced she would be a Teris genius from how she fits so much in one box.  She also is someone who thinks about the earth and how she and others care for it.  She goes around in her spare time and cleans up beaches and other areas where people litter. She is diligent in her care of things and people, which again shows how much she thinks.

So for Christmas this year I wanted to make something for her that would tell her how much we love her. I was thinking about how she recycles; how she tries whenever possible to buy product that are made from recycled materials. So I thought maybe I could make something for her out of recycled materials.  It accrued to me that she collects soda tabs for a good cause. There is always a container on her counter where she is collecting them. 

I thought, “I could make her a necklace out of soda tabs.”

However, I was worried about the sharp jagged part of the soda tabs that is left over from the can when you pull the tab off. So I took some needle nose pliers and slowly folded over all the sharp ends so it would not cut her skin.  I was able to crochet the tabs together in a pattern that I believe looks elegant.  I feel that it also represents her level of thought and care.

Hey, Where did the back of the remote

Hey,

Where did the back of the remote go?

                       

Remote #1 Missing back

                                                   

                         

                       Empty toliet paper roll                              Three cut pieces

                                          

                                               Three pieces put together

              

                          

            Rectangles for holding in the batteries             Stacked rectangles        

                                                               Taped stack of rectangles                  All pieces together

                  

New back of remote in place

                             

                             

               Duct tape on the top

                             

                                                    Remote #2 Missing back

                 

                             

                                                        Cut back to shape

                        

       Rectangles for holding in the batteries           Taped stack of rectangles

                        

                                               All pieces taped together

                             

                                                    Duct tape on the top

                             

                                                  Remote #3 Missing back

                         

                                      

                      Egg like shape with two slits cut for the side that is sloped

                                          

                       Overlapped paper that has been cut in slits then taped

                      

        Rectangles for holding in the batteries        Taped together rectangles

                                          

                                                     All pieces together

                          

                                                 Duct tape on the top

                   

                                               Painted all three black

Hey, where did the back of the remote go?  I can’t tell you the number of times I have asked this question.  I move furniture, couch cushions and afghans, and I can’t find them. It is like the missing sock from the dryer for our family.  We then proceed to put duct tape on the back of the remote. While this solution does allow us to keep the batteries in the remote; we still have to adjust the batteries back in place after a while.  The duct tape eventually gets gummy or sticky from use.  Which leads to me wondering again, where did the back to the remote go?  Sometimes I even look for it again, which has yet to yield results.

We were up to three out of our four remotes without backs for the batteries.  This time I took it as a personal challenge to find a better solution than “just” duct tape. I took each remote and tried a different material to cover the back. I covered each back with duct tape and painted them black to match.  The paint should (I hope) keep the duct tape from fraying at the sides. I also added a thick rectangle on the inside like what comes in the backs originally, to hold the batteries in place.  Now to see if it works… (maniacal laugh).

Fleece Drawstring VS Elastic Waist Band

Happy Penguin Pants

               Before                                                 After

                               

     Removed Drawstring                         Installed Elastic

Happy Penguin Pants

I have heard some of my southern in-laws talk about the joys of comfort foods.  I think that there are comfort clothes.  Clothes that just feels good emotionally to wear.  Putting them on is like slipping into a warm bath after playing outside in the snow all day. 

Two Christmases ago I made fleece pajamas for my kids.  Each kid has loved them for different reasons. When I constructed the sets of pajamas I left a lot of room to grow so they could wear them for a while.  I also put draw strings in the pants so they could easily be adjusted as they grew. 

What I did not understand was how the fleece pants would grab the fleece draw strings I made for the pants.  So while my kids love the feel of the fabric, getting the pants tied closed has been a problem.  Convincing my kids I needed to change the pants to fix them has been even harder.  I felt like I had two options.  Number one, I could use ribbon for a draw string in the pants. For my sons this did not seem like a viable option because they are extremely sensitive to anything remotely girly. Option number two, putting elastic in the pants.  An idea I had originally shied away from because I didn’t want the elastic to get tight and pinch as they grew.  I finally resolved on the elastic fix as this would not be girly. My youngest son is now even happier wearing his penguin pajamas, since he can put the pants on all by himself.

Broken Rubber Band Fix

Broken rubber band Fix

 

Broken favorite shirt

     

"Broken" rubber band   

              

Fixed Favorite shirt

How much is a favorite shirt worth? To a little girl, a lot.  My youngest daughter wore it till the little elastic that held the shirt on her shoulders broke.  For a while she kept trying to wear it anyway.  She would take the elastic string and try to wrap it around the button.  It would hold together long enough for her forget it had broken.   Then her shirt would start to slide off one shoulder or the other again.  She would then try again to fix it.  By the end of the day she close to tears with frustration. After some persuasion I convinced her to put it in my mending basket to fix it for her.

I was not worried about being able to fix her shirt.  I knew I had the exact same elastic string that worn out among my supplies.  However, when I looked for the elastic I couldn’t find it the box I thought I had put it in.  I then looked through all kinds of containers I might have put it in and still no luck finding it.  Then I thought.”What am I going to do?”  Then a thought pops in my head of a broken rubber band that had broken earlier. I had not thrown it away since this happens to me often.  I just knot the broken ends and keep using the rubber band in my hair.  I went to the bathroom and retrieved the knotted rubber band. 

“Wahoo!” I say.

After some seam ripping, I pulled out the bad end of the elastic in her shirt. I sewed the knotted half of the rubber band inside the shirt because I hope the knot will help keep the elastic from being pulled out of the shirt.

Materials

Broken rubber band

Total Cost

0.00

Transplanting Garlic

Battle of the Meatballs

The next installment of the series: 

Revenge of the Garlic

 

Garlic that had sprouted

                                          

      Tubs from butter and sour cream                  I tried holes in the bottom last year for

                                                                          some of my herbs and they grew moldy

                                                                              from not being able to drain.

                                     

                   Drill and larger drill bit                                  Larger holes drilled in the sides

 

                           painted the outsides                        painted lables on the outsides

                                                            Growing garlic cloves

March 7, 2014

March 13, 2014

March 17, 2014

Last year I grew basil in my garden. I grew it as a companion plant to keep bugs off the tomatoes.  One of the recipes I was using for meatballs called for basil and I was out of the dried .99 cents a bottle variety I use.  So I went out to the garden and clipped some leaves and threw it with the sauce. Previously when I would make spaghetti with meatballs my kids would eat the noodles and the meatballs and not want the sauce.  We had a rule that if you wanted the meatballs you had to have the sauce with it.  This would lead to my kids picking the meatballs out then scraping the sauce off.  They would then eat the noodles and the meatballs with a small mound of sauce and noodles off to the side on their plates. It was always a comical battle.  This time was different. While I was still cooking my husband and kids came into the kitchen to tell me dinner smelled good.  I could smell the sauce a little, which is unusual but it looked like spaghetti sauce to me. 

I served dinner and we went through our normal battle of the meatballs.  Now when you pull your meatballs out of sauce you can’t help but get a little of the sauce on the meatball.  My oldest son ate his first meatball.

 He said “Mm that’s good sauce Mom.” This of course made me and my husband pause.

I said “thank you”.  His sisters then dipped their fingers into the sauce to try it. 

“This is good Mom”, from my oldest daughter.

“Thank you” I said.After a few more second of shock I tried it myself. 

I know that good cooks sample their cooking to gauge what food need as they cook.  My husband does this often, tasting the food, adding a little more of this, some of that, till he say whatever he is cooking is right.  This doesn’t work for me; I have tried this upon my husband’s request, to experiment and see if I could tell what was missing or needed. It never works. I can’t tell.  This experience was different; I could taste a difference in the sauce. I could taste the basil.  It was a really neat experience for me.

I believe now that the difference for me was in the fresh from the garden flavor.  Herbs must lose a large amount of their flavor when it goes from the garden to the store and even more when it’s dried.  I now only have problems getting my kids to eat spaghetti sauce if I have not put fresh basil in the sauce. They always know when I have because they all have a sense of smell like my husbands.  I knew from my experiences with my husband’s turkey that there can be a great difference in how food tastes based on the care taken in the preparation of food.  It can be very delicious or very bland.  What was different for me this time was the tasting of a single herb.

Why do I go into this experience? I will be trying a new item in my garden this year that I hope to add to my spaghetti; fresh garlic instead of powdered .99 cent garlic powder. 

June 3, 2014

  

Time to transplant

 

Lots of lovely roots.  

They definitely need more room.

I am going to peak since this is an experiment.

I have a full round bulb. 

 I am not sure if this is how it is supposed to look but i will find out.

I have transplanted them in with tomatoes since they are supposed to get along.