When I was 9 years old I was very lucky to have an 84 year old neighbor, Viola Hull, who invited me into her house and showed me all the treasures of her long life. "I was a Centenial baby," she told me, which meant she was born in 1876. Besides sharing all her memorabilia, she taught me to sew on her Singer treadle machine, and also taught me to knit and crochet. The fact that her eysight was good enough to make a pair of socks on four wiry needles and fine yarn amazes me to this day.

When I learned to sail at age 26 I always had a keen eye for fair leads. I attributed this to my experience with string. Afer all, line (rope) on a boat is just a different kind of string. I loved the turks heads and various knots that were the mark of an experienced mariner.

Fast forward to 2012. My lastest project was splicing Spectra, a new kind of line that can replace stainless steel wire.

Also, we 'end or ended' our halyards and I was put in charge of making the eye splices in the new ends. Bruce gave me the instructions, which he had kept from 1978 when he bought his schooner and set out to be a boat captain. Tomorrow I'll make us a new bridle. I could do this kind of work all day. I am not artistic so this is the closest I'll ever get to being an artisan.



But the real reason for this blog is that I went to a workshop on St. John about five years ago, sponsored by the Friends of the National Park, that was about recycling trash bags. You know, the kind that you get at the grocery store. We were taught a technique for cutting these bags into a continuous string, and then crocheting them into purses or shopping bags. My kind of project! I played with this, making some very ugly bags and change purses. But I really found my niche making new coozies for drink cans and bottles. All the coozies we had on our boat were made out of neoprene and they would eventually turn black with mildew. I started making coozies with different patterns (stripes and swirls) and bright colors from our travels throughout the Caribbean.

When we bought our current boat, Pacific Hwy, the interior color scheme was a plaid of red, dark blue, and tan. We were doing our grocery shopping at a nearby Albertson's which has grocery bags in these same colors. I started making coozies and finally found my groove.

So here I proudly present my drink coozies, made with Albertson's bags and accented with TJ max or World Market. I've made about six, which is as many as we need, so place your order now and I'll be happy to make some for you whenever we are off-shore and I need a good project. Maybe it's adult ADD, maybe it's recycling. Whatever. Thank you, Mrs. Hull, I love you.