Hiking and crochet

I'll have a contest winner post later today. I wrote this post Sunday evening so I hadn't drawn winners yet.

Well, we did it! We hiked the Alum Cave trail to Mount Leconte in the Great Smokies! When we visited the Smokies in June we only hiked to Alum Cave and have regretted chickening out of the rest of he hike ever since. We just had to go back and give it another try. It was at least 10 miles, over 3000 feet in elevation change and it took abut 7 hours. It was brutal but so worth it. The views along the way were breathtaking. We weren't even terribly sore the next day but we did mostly a driving tour that day except for the short (but steep) hike to Clingman's Dome so we could get this photo of Mount Leconte. The Great Smokies are beautiful and are particularly beautiful in Autumn but boy there are A LOT OF PEOPLE! I thought Acadia was crowded. It's nothing compared to the popularity of the Great Smokies. GS is so much bigger and loads more people live within a short drive so it's completely understandable. We saw license plates from New Hampshire to Texas to Wisconsin. It's a real treasure to have it so close by. Of course we have the Shenandoah even closer so we are pretty blessed with parks here in Virginia.

We were only there for a few nights so I didn't take any sewing with me. I had this car crochet project left from the trip to Maine. This pattern is so perfect for working on in the car. I make these blanket as big as the amount of yarn that I have. This yarn is a Caron yarn and I DO NOT LIKE IT. It's too stiff. I guess I'm spoiled by Hobby Lobby yarn. It's so much softer and nicer. But I had 2 big balls of it and it's made a blanket for a 4 or 5 year old. I bought some white to make a border that I hope will give it a little calmer personality.
The blanket isn't quite as ugly as it looks in this photo. I don't think the lighting or the green carpet did it any favors. I'll have a better photo when it's done.

I actually finished the body of the first afghan while we were in Gatlinburg so we had to make a quick stop on the way out of town so I could start another for the car ride home. This yarn is going to make a much prettier blanket and I got some dark pink for a border. It will be put away for the next car trip.

Before we left I posted about this gingham blanket that I started. Well it turns out that I'm really allergic to this yarn. I was having all kinds of allergy problems that week. It took a few days but I eventually realized that it was this yarn. It's acrylic so it shouldn't be a problem but it's likely a dye or finish. Could be anything. I'll find someone to give this yarn too. I'm happy to do that anyway because I think this yarn is too stiff too, like the Caron yarn above. I'll go get some Hobby Lobby yarn to make another one. I do like the technique a lot.

I had to go to Michaels to find the right white that would go with the first blanket so while I was there I picked up more yarn so I can finish this blanket. 

My plan is to finish the big blanket above and then do the binding on Kim's quilt before I get back to any other crochet projects. That quilt is so big that it's probably going to take a month to stitch down that binding!

​This week I'm going to get Mom's quilt loaded and maybe quilted and finish up my test spirograph floor cloth so I can get started on the real ones. I've also got to get some plans together for my Christmas postcards. I'm getting a very late start on those!