The Upper Hudson Library System has issued an adventure challenge- visit all 36 of their locations before the end of July. This is their second run of this program, the earlier one was in 2018. I sort of did it- as in, over the course of a year leading up to the end of the 2018 program, I visited all 36 libraries. I feel I need to do it in the actual timeframe to fully earn my gold (colored) library card. Expeditioners who achieve this feat twice get a platinum (colored )card.
I like to bring gifts when I visit people. I thought about making a little knitted VW van, or a car, or…this was very ambitious, knitted replicas of each library. Finally I landed on an owl, the symbol of wisdom and libraries. Archimedes the owl was the messenger of Athena in Greek mythology. My first attempt at an owl was pretty big, and I decided to make something smaller. I put the large one in my home library. I adjusted a textured pattern I had for fingerless gloves, making it a stuffed figure, and added small safety eyes and an embroidered beak. After doing a few I was able to do them quickly. I did quite a few on my vacation, as it was a small, easily portable project (my husband thought it was weird bringing polyfill in my suitcase, though).
I will either hand the owl to someone at the front desk, or hide it in the stacks somewhere. I’ve seen some cool ideas related to the Expedition. Some ladies bring a box of origami cranes to each library. My friends went on a “Library Crawl” and showed their stacks of graphic novels they found. If you’re doing something cool related to this, let me know!
