January 26-27, 2013 Weekend, Recylcing a Covered Belt Buckle, a Few More Crocheted Crusher Hats, Beans and Cornbread, Buttons, and an Owl Cushion

First of all thank you to everyone who understood about the barking dog at our neighbors. Since that morning we have only heard the dog barking during the daytime and then it’s only been a few times that we’ve heard it. Let’s hope that it stays that way.  🙂 Anyway, I’ve had this little covered belt buckle in my stash for who knows how long. I just keep looking at it saying to myself, “self; I know I’ll be able to use that some day, so don’t throw it away.” Well that day came on Saturday when I wanted a little something on the white and gray “Crusher” hat that I had finished on Friday. I didn’t like how the band looked where I changed colors so I wanted something to place over the top of it and that little covered belt buckle was going to do the trick.

I crocheted around it with the gray that I used for the band and then I just sewed a little strip of fun fabric together and placed it through the buckle, then sewed it all down to the hat band.

Then I headed to my haircut appointment and as I left there, and since I was so close to Material Girls Quilt Shoppe I decided to stop in to visit them and show them my new creations. The ladies at Material Girls are always happy to see me and are very interested in what I’ve been making. Cathy decided that she just had to have the white and gray hat with the belt buckle so now she’s the proud owner of another one of my creations. I love to hear her tell people in the shop that she never used to like crocheted items until I started bringing in my creations. Cathy is so sweet and so are all the other ladies at Material Girls.

While I was at my hair appointment I finished up this purple “Crusher” hat and although I loved the way it looked I just thought it needed a little more.

So I added 8 loops all the way around and made a fabric band to run through the loops. Now I really, really love it.

Here we go, John asked me to come outside to check out his hidden surveillance camera that’s activated by movement. I think he’s really going to be sorry that he griped and said that I don’t want to take pictures with him.

Saturday afternoon and evening I decided to make another “Crusher” hat this time I made this one in the color of linen and for the band I used taupe.

Then I decided I wanted to add this little mother of pearl belt buckle to it and this time I just crocheted it in as I crocheted the head band. I’m glad that I am happy with it even though the buckle sits crooked on the band. I think it just adds a little interest to the hat.

Sunday morning I decided to cook a pot of brown beans and as I was washing the beans and getting the pan out. I remembered all the Sundays when I was a child where we would load up into the pickup on warm days or crowd into the car on cold days to go and visit my Grandpa and Grandma Kingery who lived in the big city of Wichita. (we lived out in the country) Anyway my Grandma would always fix a huge pot of brown or white beans cooked with a ham hock along with cornbread. And that was our meal, nothing more. She would feed at least 11 people on any given Sunday. Of course she would always have some kind of cake or dessert made too.

I remember when we would walk into the back door or even before we got to the door you could smell the beans cooking with garlic. While I was chopping up my garlic I remember going into their oversized two car garage that had an upstairs in it. Along the stairwell my Grandma had her garlic hanging to dry. I loved going to her house because she lived in town and we got to play on the cement driveway (ours was dirt and sand), we got to play in their yard which was always very soft grass with no stickers like ours had.

For our lunch I went ahead and mixed up some cornbread and my Mom’s words come back to me as I stir the batter. “Now don’t stir it too hard, just mix it very carefully.”

And I always use an iron skillet to cook my cornbread in as I think it gives it a nice crunch on the outside. I still don’t make it as good as my Grandma or my Mom did but John loves it and that’s all that counts, right?

The only thing that’s different about when I cook beans now is that I always have to make something to go with it, because when John was growing up he didn’t eat just beans. The Mexican culture always had beans with their meals kind of like how we have potatoes with ours. Now I can’t just make beans and cornbread he always wants to know what else we are having. So on Sunday we had baked sweet potatoes and a sliced avocado on the side. Yummy!

Now for the buttons, oh my gosh my cousin Sue handed me a large bag of buttons on the day of our cousins funeral. And this Sunday I opened up the bags and poured them out on my table and I felt like hyperventilating. These buttons that she gave me are the coolest old buttons that I’ve ever had. I have bought old vintage buttons before and have found only a few that actually match. These bags are the coolest and I can’t wait to get some crochet thread and group them together into their sets. Just the gold and silvery button bag there is 22 sets of buttons. Now I have to think about something cool to do for Sue.

I can’t remember what lured me to this cute owl cushion, but I knew that I needed to purchase the pattern and make it. Petra of Zoomyummy.com has some really cool patterns and her instructions are very thorough. The owl cushion was my all day project on Sunday.

I especially love the buttons that I used for the eyes and I love the crocodile stitch.

We learned how to do this stitch at one of our guild meetings last year but I didn’t grasp it as well as I did on Sunday. I loved making the stitches and I loved using all the different colors on each round. Now all that’s left to do is stuff it and sew up the top and it will be done. So how was your weekend? Did you do anything fun?