August 2019 – Paige's Pages

With moving into a new apartment and building my own couch (more on that later), I knew I’d need some cute pillows and I also knew I could make something just as good if not better than what I could find at the store. This coincided with the liquidation of Pat Catan’s where I had bought a lot of random yarn that was very much on sale. So, I bought a four pack of 18-in pillow inserts from amazon and got started.

Mustard & Grey Ribbed Pillow

The first pillow I made was following a pattern on the Yarn & Hooks blog that comes with a really great video tutorial. This one was actually really fun to make and I love how bold the ribbing is. The yarn I used here was from the brand All Things You and it was a Super Bulky Wool blend in a mustard and a grey color. The mustard on the front is one skein and I had two skeins of the grey. The pattern states that it takes about four skeins, so I had to finish up a bit of the edge on the back and join with a bulky white yarn. The pattern also calls for a 16 inch insert, but I knew I wanted a very bulky and fluffy pillow that wouldn’t go flat, so I went with an 18 inch insert to make sure all the corners were filled and robust.

Navy & Grey Chevron Pillow

The second pillow I made using a very cool Polly Plum square pattern that she calls As Time Goes By that can be found here. There’s a really great video that will walk you through the entire pattern, showing you all the little tricks to each stitch. The square as the pattern is written was a few inches too short, so I added two rows right before the end row and the finishing row of single crochet. The end row (row 15 in the pattern) has stitches that help to finish the out the pattern of the chevron all the way to the edge, so any size adjustments have to be added before that. I made two squares and then put the wrong sides together and slip stitched all the way around through the top loops of the single crochet. The color changes depended completely on if I thought I had enough yarn to finish out the row, and if I didn’t I just changed the color. The pattern actually turned out great and I got to use up all my yarn with very few little random bits left over! The yarn I used on the front and in the middle of the back was a Lion Brand Thick & Quick yarn in colors Olympic and Katmai. The navy on the back outside of the gray was an All Things You Super Bulky Wool Blend and then a Lion Brand Wool-ease Thick & Quick yarn in the color Grey Marble around the edge. The squares here also came out to be about 16 inches, even though I had 18 inch inserts because I wanted a good, full pillow.

All-in-all, I’m very happy with my pillows. I hate buying things that I feel like I can make myself and this way you can make it exactly how you like it, not having to settle with whatever is available on the shelf.

I spent the month of May in Ireland learning about medieval monasteries all while digging up one. It was a trip through my university that combined the science of archaeology with the textual and comparative evidence of medieval history. That being said, we visited many medieval churches and monasteries and did a lot of manual labor involving a lot more wheel-barrowing than I had expected. I lived in a home-stay with three other girls from my program for the month which let us get to know the local culture and be immersed in the community. Everyone on the trip became very close and many nights were spent together out at the local pub. It was an amazingly memorable experience I will take with me forever. Here I will recount some of my trip, what we did, and what i thought about it.

Trim

I stayed in the town of Trim just 40 minutes north west of Dublin. It’s home to Trim Castle which was used in the filming of Braveheart. We passed this castle and other ruins (pictured above with sheep) on our way to work every day as well as some adorable animals (mainly sheep and donkeys). We spent most of our days at Trim’s Blackfriary Archaeology Field School learning how to excavate, methods of post-excavation, and many other things in the world of archaeology such as lessons in bioarcheaology and how to use various equipment. The archaeologists here were amazing people and they even had a site cat called Lola. They do a lot of school tours and community digs where the people living around the site can get involved and interested in what’s going on. Trim itself has several cute restaurants, but we didn’t get to try too many. We were completely consumed by the fish and chips at a quick Italian shop on the corner called Fabio’s that any time we had an opportunity to eat out, we just ate there.

The weather was much different than I had expected. It was a lot colder. I had read online to wear layers etc. but I never truly grasped why until I was there. The sun is quite piercing when it isn’t hidden by clouds so we had to liberally apply sunscreen on digging days. It would get quite warm too, but when the clouds covered the sun it would get a lot chillier. The day we went to Dublin I wore four layers (a 3/4 sleeve shirt, cardigan, jean jacket, rain coat) and took them off and put them back on many times.

During our last week in Trim, we went kayaking down the Boyne river which was so much fun. It got a little bumpy and they assured us that we would all fall in at least once (although I never did). It was nice to have that time to spend not within a town or city, but within nature and the surrounding landscape. We passed a field of cows that ran along with us and got up close and personal with some of Ireland’s flying insects (not my favorite part). We ended up by Bective Abbey, which one one of the comparative places we visited to go along with our study of medieval monasteries.

Dublin

We got a bus to Dublin on a Saturday and it was a lovely day of shopping and eating. We, of course, went to the archaeology museum which was very cool even if you aren’t on a trip that is doing archaeology like I was. They had an exhibit on the bog bodies that was an interesting read and much of the local history and archaeological finds from all over Ireland. I also, of course, had to buy yarn while I was there. I bought four skeins in different colors (a light blue, dark blue, green, and a plum) that were spun in Donegal and then two other skeins that were made elsewhere. I bought a really beautiful orange colored yarn that was made in Spain which I will be making a project out of and will post soon. We also had a stop in Dublin on our way to Galway later in the trip and I found a little pastie shop and bought the most delicious beef and gravy pastie. I still dream about it.

Kilkenny & surrounding area

The weekend we spent in Kilkenny was a very interesting one. Many of the places we visited included stories of the history of the area, the most thorough account of which we heard at the Medieval Mile museum. It was at one point a booming merchant town and it seems to still be a place that a lot of people from surroundings towns come to on the weekends. The first place we visited and probably my favorite was St. Canice’s Cathedral & Round Tower. You are able to purchase a ticket to climb the stairs all the way up the round tower. My legs were shaking the entire way up and all the way down but the experience was totally worth it; It’s fascinating that they would build such a thing. The tour we had here was also may favorite because of all the personal stories that go along with the tombs and sculptures within the cathedral. We then visited the Black Abbey which had some beautiful stained glass windows and then in the Medieval Mile museum we saw some castes of the High Crosses that we would see later on in Ahenny (fourth picture). We also visited Jerpoint Abbey (seen in the third picture) which had a beautiful surrounding landscape and little dragon-like (or so I thought) carvings on the pillars in the cloister.

Galway

On one of our free weekends, we traveled to Galway which was a destination I was really looking forward to because if Ed Sheeran can write a song with its name in the title, it must be good. It was a picturesque city with colorful buildings and pretty views of the water down by the docks. It was also quite a busy place on the weekend. It proved difficult to find any space in any of the many pubs we went into. From the amount of hen parties (bachelorette parties) that I saw not only this weekend but pretty much every weekend no matter where we were (and during the week, it didn’t really matter), I’m led to believe that someone is always getting married in Ireland.

The first night there, we walked around and just let ourselves get lost. We found several little book shops and ended up at a nice little restaurant where I got mussels in a white wine sauce (so yum). The next day we did the obligatory-and-honestly-worth-it tour to the Cliffs of Moher and through the Burren. The Cliffs of Moher were exciting and breathtaking and even more interesting (and anxiety inducing) to watch how many people climb over the barricade to take a picture of themselves sitting right on the edge. There’s a desire there to dance with death that I will never understand. However, driving through the Burren was mystical. Its a vast landscape of limestone that was once covered by the sea and it just has an otherworldly feel. If you have the chance to visit this area, I think it’s definitely worth the experience.

Carlingford

Carlingford was my favorite place that we visited. It had a lovely atmosphere and it was exactly what I thought of when I thought of a small Irish town. It retains much of its medieval layout and has medieval buildings riddled throughout the town. It sits right next to an inlet known as Carlingford Lough and across these waters is Northern Ireland. I bought some jams here from a hotel that included a Red Current Jam, Rhubarb Chutney, and Rum, Raisin, & Apple Jam and brought them home as gifts. I also bought a book in a little antique shop there. The best part about this excursion, however, was the hike up the nearby mountain to the remnants of a village that had been abandoned after the famine. The view was breathtaking. You could see the Irish landscape sprawled out below. If you keep climbing, there is a neolithic burial mound, but I didn’t have enough time to make the trek. Another honorable mention is the sheep that roam through the ruins, my favorite of my favorite parts because it paints such a romantic image.

Ireland was beautiful and the experience was made worthwhile because of the people I met along the way. I don’t feel like that’s the last time I will be seeing the Green Isle, either, because it has so much to offer. I really didn’t get to see much of the southern part of the country and I’ve heard Dingle is great to see. I didn’t venture into Northern Ireland, which is something some of our group did in a trip to Belfast instead of Galway. Overall, I love that I got the chance to be there for a month and really soak up the experience of living there rather than just jumping from one city to the next doing the touristy things. Many of my favorite parts of the trip were when we would take our time and wander around the countryside; a portion of any trip that’s not to be missed. Being able to breathe in a landscape like Ireland has to offer is an experience all on its own.