Dishcloth 7 of 26

7) Snowflakes:

Iowa Koozy - Hayden Fry

Another koozy. These are some of my favorite projects - someone made a joke about wanting a koozy with Hayden Fry on one side, thinking that would not be possible. I surprised him with this koozy and he was adequately surprised and excited!

Garden

Well, this isn't exactly a craft, but I am excited about it so I'm going to share. I planted a garden in May. Here is the BEFORE:

I got home from my week long vacation today and was really worried that it would be dead...but here is the AFTER:

Everything had grown and was ready to be picked! Look at all this! I even had 2 blueberries from my blueberry bush. Check out my web album if you want to see more before and afters!

Cole's Robot Quilt

I know it has been a long time since I have posted anything, but I finally have something to show for myself! I had great intentions of posting updates on this quilt as it went, but I was sick for a couple weeks, traveled, had guests at our house, etc, etc and never got around to it. So here is the finished product. It is a baby quilt for my friend who just had a baby boy. Their theme is robots, so I thought David Walker's Robots was an obvious choice. The pattern is my own. I did applique planets and rockets in the 4 corners and a big robot in the center - all inspired by the fabric. The shapes are free-hand, so not perfect, but I was pretty happy with the result.

Chickadee purse plus clutch

I finally finished the Chickadee purse that someone ordered to give as a gift. It is the same as the prototype except that I added some iron on interfacing to the body of the purse to give it more structure. I also decided to add a matching clutch. It closes with a button and elastic loop (hair tie).

I also made some hang tags and tied one on with ribbon.

And, some new packaging!

Dishcloths 5-6 of 26

5) Vertical Weave

6) Six Stitch Cable

From these two I learned:

• I am not a huge fan of pass slipped stitch over (but maybe I just need practice)
• Cables are way easier the second time around (I made this dishcloth once before)
• As much as I like the idea of not using a cable needle, I am not willing to take that chance just yet.
• I need to work on regulating my cast on and off tension because I go between way to tight and way to loose. I need to find a happy medium.
• There must be better ways to bind off some of these patterns because sometimes it just doesn't look very good. I need to look into that too.

I recently got the book Knit Fix by Lisa Kartus, but haven't had the time to take a look yet. I am hoping I can get some good pointers there to help out with some of the issues I am having. But regardless of some of these issues, I feel like I am definitely moving towards my goal of becoming better at knitting. I am quicker and it is getting easier. I am getting better at recognizing my mistakes and fixing them. I am starting to get ideas of how to do things without a pattern. I really like cables! This is exciting. I can't wait until I am done with all 26 and I can look back and see how much I have progressed and learned.

Chickadee purse

I usually just name my purses after the person they were made for. But, this one is a surprise and just in case, I decided I better come up with another name. Chickadees are kind of black and white like this purse so...

Well actually, this exact purse is not for someone else, it is for me. Every time I come up with a new design I have to try it out first to make sure it comes out how I am envisioning it. The second time is always better because I figure out what I should do to make it better. So, I will be beta testing this one.

This time I used rings to connect the handle.

It is lined with satin, has a magnetic snap closure and a decorative silver button.