I Still Hate George Rogers Clark, But Vincennes Has Two Native American Mounds, Only One Of Which I'd Seen Before

Also, Mr. Craft Knife knew I was lonely for my kids and there's nothing that will cheer me up like a national park passport stamp.

And it doesn't hurt that I'm desperate to watch Project Hail Mary on IMAX but we're listening to the book on CD first, and a day trip is a great way to bust through a good three CDs!

So, off to Vincennes!

I've only been to Vincennes, and the George Rogers Clark National Historical Park, once before, on a family day trip way back when the kids were ten and twelve and we were studying the American Revolution. I was in a phase of trying to turn composition books into single-subject journals in which the kids could take notes and record their thoughts and paste documents and write essays. We could then keep the notebooks, and every time we returned to that same subject, the kids could use them for review and then add all their new information. I still think this is an AMAZING idea, but the kids never stopped being horrified by it, so eventually I gave up.

And that's why they now don't remember all their states and capitals or all the original 13 colonies!

Anyway, I was still very much insisting on American Revolution notebooks during this homeschool field trip, and I'm so happy I did (and a little bummed at myself for not holding the line forever) when I can pull out gems like this, written by the older kid as a travel journal entry after this trip:

This was also the day that I discovered that my 10-year-old could correctly utilize scare quotes!

It's been just almost ten years since that trip, and nothing has changed. The older kid still thinks that all money would best be served by being given to her, the younger kid still strongly emits in every encounter the sentiment implied by scare quotes, and the George Rogers Clark Memorial still sits on top of the site that used to be Fort Sackville:

OT, but why am I genuinely channeling my Pappa in this photo, with my hands shoved into my pockets and my phone on prominent display in the cargo pocket equivalent of a cellphone holster? All I need is a couple of handfuls of coins and keys to jingle.

Random gossip: back in the 1930s, when plans for this building were being made and bids were being taken for the work, the limestone lobby and the granite lobby got into a big fight. The limestone lobby was all, "Yo, The building should obviously be made from Indiana limestone, because INDIANA. Granite isn't even FROM here!"

And then the granite lobby was all, "Yeah, that's awesome if you want your whole building to look like a weathered old gravestone in 30 years. You know what DOESN'T literally dissolve in the rain? GRANITE."

Ultimately, it was decided to do the outside parts in granite and the inside parts in limestone, but then someone found out that the granite they were planning to use was being sourced from Canada (gasp!), and both the limestone lobby AND the granite lobby freaked out. 

Don't worry, y'all. They eventually found enough US granite to complete the project and peace was restored.

I know the people of the early 1900s were allllllll about their huge granite memorials (see: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park), but I far prefer the historical recreation school of thought (see Fort Necessity National Battlefield). Instead of a huge monument right where Fort Sackville used to be, wouldn't you prefer a life-sized recreation of Fort Sackville? 

At least they can't take away the river across which Clark and his "army" (lol, that kid!) sneaked... although they CAN channelize it, it seems!

There's not much of a riparian buffer zone on the east bank, but regular flooding is more historically accurate, I guess:

We walked across the bridge to get a landscape view of the site. There also used to be a French village in the area, but I'm not sure where:

You can kind of imagine a fort right where that big granite monument is!

This is my partner, who literally DROVE US HERE, being disturbingly surprised that we're at the edge of the state:

I was all, "Well, we drove southwest until we got to the Wabash River. What did you think was going to be on the other side?"

He replied, "Um... more Indiana?"

Come on, Dude! The Wabash River is the state river of Indiana! It marks the the southwest border of the state almost all the way up to Terre Haute, and then somehow manages to wrap around Indiana and end up on the other side of the state in Ohio! There have been songs written about it and how it's literally right here! One of those songs is literally the Indiana state song!

Ten years ago, I would have smugly informed him that he was welcome to join our homeschool anytime. On this day, however, I had to just let a smug look suffice.

This church isn't original to the site, but the cemetery is, and it's the site of the original church:

I feel a lot of sympathy for the French citizens of the original town, who probably spent all day, every day, swearing allegiance back and forth to whoever had happened to wrest temporary control over the fort next door.

I don't feel any sympathy for any widower who names his dead wife as his "consort" on her tombstone:

It's apparently just the term they used on a headstone when the wife predeceased the husband, but you and I both know good and well that's so the dude could marry again five minutes later and not have to worry about a whole string of "wife" headstones tagging along behind him. You only get to be his "wife" when he dies first, because that's the only way you wouldn't get supplanted!

This headstone, however, is lovely:

You do have to ignore the apostrophe error, though. I'm too lazy to look up when punctuation was completely standardized, but I'm pretty confident this would have always been wrong. It's a plural, not a possessive!

To the memorial!

I don't know if y'all know about my lord and savior Baumgartner Restoration, but his videos are AMAZING and will cause you to become weirdly invested in art restoration, to such an extent that when you walk into a building and see old-looking art, you'll ask the nearest park ranger about what restoration looks like for that art.

And then he'll tell you, because park rangers are also amazing!

I learned that these are not actually murals, but canvases painted in a warehouse and then installed here using marouflage. The park ranger even pointed out a couple of place where you could see some wrinkling where the canvas hadn't adhered smoothly. He also mentioned this canvas that had been revised, because from the viewing angle it originally looked like that one prone soldier on the right was aiming at George Rogers Clark, lol!

The park ranger and I yapped so much that this poor dude eventually had to sit down and dissociate, lol:

He got his revenge, though, because later he left me standing by the bathrooms, wondering where on earth he was, while he'd actually wandered off to have a whole entire conversation about these Art Deco bronze embellishments with that same park ranger!

How do you end up with the Zodiac on an American Revolution memorial?

Art Deco!

My absolute favorite component is the corn:

I also like George Rogers Clark, his nose polished because that's where everyone touches him:

Fun fact: the memorial is literally falling apart, with the original bronze doors collapsing and the skylight starting to fall in and leaks from all over during every rain. There's no way to get the money to repair it, though, because Trump cut funding to the national parks. Who needs to preserve our national legacy when we can instead have a dictator's private army of jackbooted thugs committing human rights violations on our streets? 

At this point, I need to tell you that other than the Jackbooted Thug in Chief, Mr. Craft Knife and I are the dumbest fucks on the planet. To reiterate, this is the George Rogers Clark memorial:

There's a set of steps to get into the inside, and then a covered area all the way around that colonnade, and then another paved area below that enclosed by that middle wall. The bottom wall just has landscaping inside of it. 

To our credit(?), each of these areas is expansive, and it's unclear--if you're a dumb fuck, at least!--where any additional points of egress might be.

So when Mr. Craft Knife and I, busily yapping our heads off to each other, left the building, walked down a set of steps, and turned right, we found ourselves walking around the entire building via that colonnade. We kept expecting there would be another set of steps down, but nope! We walked around, spying the visitor center we wanted to go to in the distance, continued around, admired the river, and eventually circled back to the first set of stairs we saw, which we now noticed continued down another flight.

"Lol, us!" we said, walked down that flight of stairs, and turned right to go to the visitor center.

It wasn't until we saw--and then passed--it in the distance that we realized we were on that paved area below the memorial that was also elevated and walled off. But surely there would be another set of stairs HERE! Nope! There goes the river for the second time! Hello again, statue of Francis Vigo, namesake of Vigo County!

Eventually we reached, yes, that exact same set of stairs again, and noticed that oh, right, it continues down ANOTHER FUCKING FLIGHT.

Finally, we managed to conquer the world's easiest escape room, and could go get my passport stamp!

That's 34 down, and 399 to go!

Burrito and margarita break:

Now, onto the mounds!

There's a lot of conflicting information about Sugarloaf Mound and Pyramid Mound, and it's not immediately clear what information is authoritative. This webpage, for instance, names Pyramid Mound but has photos and driving direction for Sugarloaf Mound, making it unclear which mound the descriptions refer to. The Wikipedia page for Pyramid Mound also shows photos of Sugarloaf Mound. The Megalithic Portal site has accurate info on its page about Sugarloaf Mound, but its page about Pyramid Mound... also shows an image of Sugarloaf Mound, sigh.

Here's what's written about Sugarloaf Mound in the 1911 History of Old Vincennes:

Fortunately, a study of Sugar Loaf Mound was done in 1998. It found that Sugar Loaf Mound is natural--it's essentially a sand dune formed from all the silt/loess blowing around after the glaciers receded. The "red altar clays" are a misidentification, but there was significant human activity on the mound, as this study found human bones and chert in the core samples. The author theorizes that the mound was used as a "cemetery" by the Late Woodland peoples. The Woodlands people just loved burying each other on top of nice knolls! This article said they'd sometimes build artificial burial mounds, too, but those were pretty small--what they really liked is a nice, tall mound that was already there for them. So now I'm wondering if they'd also take advantage of the super old Mound Builder-era mounds and also pop some of their corpses in. Or maybe they thought that these mounds WERE from the Mound Builder era, since they look so similar!

You certainly can't beat the view from the top:

...and of course I've got my hands in my pockets again:

I made my partner walk alll the way down by himself so he could take a photo of me looking tiny at the top. It's not every day that you get to stand on top of a mound!

Just between us, it's a little less exciting when it's not an earthwork that was built by the ancient peoples, but if they thought it was special, then so do I.

Although the author of "The Geomorphology of Sugar Loaf Mound" didn't also sample Pyramid Mound, he theorizes that it's also natural, since it has the same shape and is in a similar geographic situation that could have resulted in the same type of dune formation. A previous excavation of that mound uncovered more human burials and a piece of the fancy Yankeetown pottery. This sign said that the human remains were repatriated but the pottery lives at Grouseland, the historic home of that asshole William Henry Harrison.

Notice the signage is explicitly calling the mound natural, but as far as I know that hasn't been directly ascertained through core samples or other excavations. But I do think that 1998 Stafford study made a convincing argument!

I've been avoiding paying admission to that bag of dicks' house because I hate him, but I guess now I'll have to!

The whole area of Pyramid Mound is really overgrown, and you probably wouldn't be able to hike it much further into Spring without getting mobbed by ticks:

There's a line of little blue utility flags, though, that mark a trail towards the top, and as you walk it, you can--again, at least this early in the Spring--make out the profile of the mound:

The top of the mound is very overgrown with old trees, but there are also a lot of divots dug deep into the mound, making me wonder if sometimes people sneak up here and do some pothunting:

Sugarloaf Mound is straight ahead in the below photo, and it's actually pretty close. Without the trees in the way, you might even be able to see it from here:

And here's... Jesus Christ, I've got my hand in my pocket AGAIN. I guess my Pappa was really with me that day! 

That's kind of funny, because Pappa would have HAAATED a day trip to mosey around American Revolution crap and big piles of dirt. HIS Special Interest was the Wild West!

P.S. Want more obsessively-compiled lists of resources and activities for geology buffs, history nerds, and lovers of handicrafts? Check out my Craft Knife Facebook page!

DIY Treat-Filled Paper Easter Eggs To Send To Your Daughters in College

I originally published this tutorial over at Crafting a Green World.

These treat-filled paper Easter eggs are a low-waste way to celebrate!

Of COURSE I still make my college kids Easter baskets! I mean, they may be away at school and having grown-up adventures, but they still like candy and LEGOs!

However, while even plastic Easter eggs are okay for a kid’s Easter basket, since they’re used year after year, I can’t get behind mailing high-waste holiday packaging to someone living in a dorm room. I don’t want to spend the money and space mailing it, and my kids don’t want to figure out what to do with it after the two seconds it takes to open it and eat the candy.

My favorite solution? Upcycled and easily recyclable PAPER!!!

It comes entirely from my stash (which means it’s something I’m actively trying to get rid of, ahem–recovering craft supply hoarder checking in!), it’s lightweight and easy to mail, and the kids can pop it into the recycling, sans guilt.

Here’s what you’ll need to craft your own treat-filled, guilt-free, easily recyclable paper Easter eggs:

Materials

• paper. The papers I upcycled for this project are pretty enough to be Easter eggs, but it honestly doesn’t even matter if they’re ugly because the important part is the candy! I used old scrapbook paper and vintage wallpaper samples, but I also had some old sheet music that I was eyeing. Book pages would be cute, or if you’ve got little kids at home, put them to work coloring in some Easter egg designs onto white paper.
• candy. Choose something that won’t get stale, if you’re also putting these into a care package. Jellybeans are a good choice, although just between us, I didn’t really like the ones you can see in the photos. I thought they’d taste like gummy clusters, darn it! Starburst jellybeans forever!
• needle and thread. I used my sewing machine for all the stitching in this project, but it could also easily be hand-stitched. A running stitch would work great!

Step 1: Trace an Easter egg template.

You can of course hand-draw an Easter egg template, but I generally just do a Google Image search. Place a piece of white paper directly onto the screen over the image you’d like to trace, and then trace it in pencil. Don’t use a pen or marker, no matter what, because we don’t want marker on our computer screens!

The template I’m using in this project is 5″ long, which is just the right size to comfortably hold 20 jellybeans. If you want to put in a different amount of treats, size up or down accordingly.

Step 2: Cut two paper Easter egg pieces per Easter egg.

Trace your template onto paper, then cut two paper Easter eggs for each finished Easter egg that you want to have.

The image above contains some Easter eggs made of scrapbook paper and some of vintage wallpaper samples.

Step 3: Sew the eggs almost all the way around.

If you’re sewing this on a machine, switch to an older needle since sewing through paper doesn’t do a sewing machine needle any favors. Set your machine to its longest straight stitch. If you’re hand-sewing, any thread works, but embroidery floss is very pretty!

Put the two Easter egg pieces together PRETTY SIDES OUT! I forgot to do this once and was very annoyed at myself, grr.

Start near the end of one of the longer sides, then sew a scant 1/4″ stitch about 75% of the way around the egg. Don’t backstitch at the start or end of your stitch line, since in my experience this tends to tear, or at least wrinkle, the paper.

Stop your line of stitching near the top of that same long edge where you started, giving yourself plenty of room to fill the Easter egg with treats. Again, don’t backstitch, but instead just gently remove the Easter egg from the machine.

Step 4: Fill the Easter egg with treats.

The stitched ends that make the opening will be a little unstable without the backstitching, so just be mindful as you gently open up the Easter egg and fill it with candies. There’s enough candy inside when the Easter egg looks full but you can still put the paper back together at the opening neatly. If the Easter egg is overstuffed, the paper will overlap unevenly, so just take candy out piece by piece until the opening is smooth.

Step 5: Finish sewing the Easter egg closed.

Carefully put the two pieces of Easter egg back together evenly, then finish sewing it closed. You’ll reinforce those unstable thread ends by starting your stitching several stitches before the opening, and ending it several stitches after the opening.

Your paper Easter eggs are now so pretty, and they hold so many nice treats!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, dog-walking mishaps, encounters with Chainsaw Helicopters, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

How to Make a Cardboard Shield from Upcycled Cardboard

 

I originally published this tutorial over at Crafting a Green World!

Have a little knight in training at home?

It takes just a few minutes to make your favorite knight her very own shield out of recycled cardboard. A cardboard shield is cheaper than even a cheap-o plastic toy shield, doesn't junk up the environment, and best of all--your child can decorate it herself!

These shields are so quick and easy to make that you don't have to limit your kid to just one; we made the shields in these photos as a party activity at my child's dragon-themed ninth birthday party, constructing them ahead of time and letting the party guests paint them. The shields were a hit, and combined with balloon swords and another giant recycled cardboard box as a paint-and-play castle, there was a LOT of swordplay and castle defending and dragon taming at the party.

Here's how to make your own:

1. Source some cardboard. The shields themselves should be made from sturdy cardboard, ideally corrugated or similar. The band in the back should be made from thin, bendy cardboard.

We obtained the cardboard used to make our shields (as well as our big box castle!) from the food pantry where we volunteer, and used old cardboard record album covers for the bands. If you don't have a handy source for obtaining cardboard, check out Freecycle or your local recycling center.

2. Cut out the shields. Fortunately, shields have a very simple form--for inspiration, do a Google Image search and choose your favorite type. If you're just making one or two shields, you can freehand your shield's shape directly onto the cardboard, but if you're making enough shields to supply a birthday party full of little knights, you may want to draw and cut out a template to trace.

Cut out the shields using a box knife.

3. Add a band to the back. Cut a rectangle out of the thin, bendy cardboard that's approximately 2" wide and 1.5 times the width of the shield. Staple it to the back of the shield, and your knight will have something to hold onto!

4. Paint and decorate. To turn shield decorating into a party activity, I set out the finished cardboard shields and a large set of tempera paint, BioColor paint, and paintbrushes. As kids arrived, they were invited to paint their shield, have my partner make them a balloon sword, help paint the giant cardboard castle, or just play. Every kid opted to paint a shield first thing.

Fortunately, the morning was warm and sunny, so as the kids finished their shields, I set them to dry on the grass, and it didn't take long for their owners to recollect them and add them into their play.

To make this an even more eco-friendly project, opt for DIY cardboard swords as well as shields--although you can't whack a kid across the head with a cardboard sword quite like you can with a balloon sword, it will make for far fewer little balloon pieces to pick up and throw away afterwards.

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, dog-walking mishaps, encounters with Chainsaw Helicopters, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Would You Like Me To Sew You A Word? Because I Have Alphabet Quilt Block Patterns Now and I Am Unstoppable.

Spelling Bee by Lori Holt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have long wanted a good alphabet quilt block pattern, mostly for monogramming and personalizing things, but I don’t want to learn foundation paper piecing (yet! I’m sure the day is coming!), and the online patterns that I’ve tried work, but they’re usually sort of blocky and/or the sizing is uneven, etc.

This book is genuinely exactly what I wanted.

The letter blocks in two sizes, 6” and 12”, are perfect--although, fine, I would also like them in 20” so that I can monogram giant pillows, but I understand the scale of that would quickly become maniacal. And I’m just saying that if the author also handed patterns for 4” blocks to me I wouldn’t say no, but on the whole I can do pretty much anything I want to do with 6 inches and 12 inches.

I had no issue piecing this percent sign block and assembling my table runner, but for some reason last night I became absolutely consumed with the idea that I'd put it in sideways, so the diagonal went the wrong way and the circles were on the wrong sides. They are NOT, the block is perfect, but I will absolutely check 14 more times and then Google it to double-check and then worry that Google is wrong and I don't know what I'm supposed to do about that but just give up, I guess. 

This is the direction a percent sign goes, right?

RIGHT?!?

I sometimes have a hard time paying attention to pattern instructions, because I’d rather just get the gist and then go off on my own and likely as not mess stuff up, but fortunately the instructions for each letter block are actually quite short, so even I could generally manage to follow them. I only had to seam rip a couple of things in my most recent project, and that was only because I was paying attention to hockey on TV and not what I was doing. The Boston Fleet are having an AWESOME season!

Seriously, though--this IS how a percent sign goes, right?

I would have liked some guidance on sashing widths that would make proper spacing between letters and words (although honestly, it’s probably in there and I just wasn’t paying attention), and on good border widths, but with a little trial and error I figured out that a 1” piece (.5” finished) is perfect between letters--

and I used 2.5” (2” finished) between words. I want to make multiple lines of text in my next project, so I’m thinking 2.5” again just to make the cutting more efficient. But maybe I should do 2”?

I’ll probably double-check the book before I decide, ahem.

Moveable alphabets are things, like Base 10 blocks, number patterns, and rainbow order, that please me greatly--they're just so organized and satisfying!--and I always like finding new ways to manipulate them. I still dream fondly of that wool felt moveable alphabet that I sewed for my young niece one Christmas--all the letters! All the colors! You could spell words with the letters! And the words would be different colors! So you will understand completely when I tell you that I am VERY excited to make a wall quilt that has my favorite Wilbur Wright quote on it. 

And then maybe a set of couch pillows with all the family's monograms.

Oh, and would the younger kid and her roommates next year like to have matching monogrammed throw pillows for their beds? The kid actually LOATHES it when I craft for her friends, because apparently nobody's else's parents put random hand-sewn gifts for strangers in their child's care packages and being unlike others is apparently something that we are meant to care about now and also a sign that I "do too much," but surely she'd come around for matching monogrammed throw pillows! And maybe just one singular bunting with their college name on it for their common room? And then maybe little quilted hangings with each of their names on it for their bedroom doors?

Okay, fine, yes, I DO hear myself here, and I do see where possibly just very potentially that "doing too much" accusation is perhaps coming from.

Sooo... just the throw pillows and the bunting, then?

P.S. View all my reviews

P.P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, dog-walking mishaps, encounters with Chainsaw Helicopters, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!