Grandmother’s Favorite Dishcloth

Designer: Unknown
Rating: Easy
Materials: Sugar and Cream yarn; Size 6 or 7 needles (US)

Instructions:
Cast on 4 stitches
Row 1: Knit 4
Row 2: Knit 2, yarn over, knit across the row. Repeat Row 2 until you have 44 stitches on the needle.
Knit 1, Knit 2 together, yarn over, knit 2 together, knit to the end of the row.

Repeat Row 3 until you have 4 stitches on the needle. You can now either bind off or do a round of single crochet and make a little loop of chain stitches in one corner so you can hang the cloth to dry when you are finished using it.

Busy!

So I’ve been really busy with school (like I only knit a couple times a week because  I have a lot of homework and studying to do), and I haven’t had time to blog (or I had a wee bit of time here and there but chose to do other things). Here is a summary of things that have happened. I finished my Multnomah.

I really like it, and at first the feather and fan bit was really confusing me and I kept messing up. After a while it was really easy and I whipped out those last few rows really fast despite the large number of stitches on the needle.

We went to a state park with a tower:

We went to a local apple orchard and fed the donkeys, goats, and alpacas and bought some really yummy apple cider and Honeycrisp apples.

Then we went to another tower (yes I know the horizon is crooked. 😉 ) We had a wind storm so most of the leaves were gone by the time we went up. Usually it’s prettier than this.

Here’s some neat fungus that was on one of the trees.

We also went to a local pumpkin farm. My pumpkin will be featured later in this post.

This is a pretty epic sunset we had a couple weeks ago. Literally the sky was hot pink and purple. It was AWESOME and the brilliant color only lasted a few minutes and after that it faded a bit.

 

Here’s a pepper I picked from our pepper plant. It went into a stir fry that we made. 🙂 We left it on the plant so long it was just starting to turn red in places.

We went to the Minneapolis area recently to look at UW River Falls for me and we also went to a state park near there. It had a pretty neat waterfall but we had to go down a REALLY steep hill to get there and walk back up it to get back to the car.

Here is the other side of the bridge that was by the waterfall. It looked really serene and peaceful on this side. I liked it.

It was a pretty chilly day and so I brought a hat and scarf  but we got warm so I took it off and here is a picture of them. The hat is recent, it’s the Butterfly Hat that I found on Ravelry. It was really easy and it was a nice pattern for the variegated Malabrigo (colorway Whale’s Road. So now I have a hat and scarf set.

Here are the pumpkins we carved last night. Mine is a ukulele. It’s pretty cute. It’d be cuter if the soundhole could be suspended in the pumpking carving but with gravity that’s not possible. 🙂 I almost forgot to carve pumpkins and I think it took me longer to get the seeds and goo out of my pumpkin than it did to carve the ukulele.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crafty!

Today I was sitting around and being bored and then I realized that we had yellow, black, and white felt and I could make the Purl Bee’s Apple Coaster.

It was really easy thanks to the easy to follow instructions in the tutorial. I also added some running stitches on the stem to make it look more complete. It’s a Golden Delicious apple. I love those apples because they kind of taste like pears.

 

Here’s the back. I always thought I sucked at making felt softies but I guess it’s easier than I thought it was.

 

I’ve also been working on this mini cross stitch kit that I got at Hobby Lobby for $1.99. It was really easy and I love how it looks. 🙂

 

This is a better picture of the doll outfit I made for the fair.

 

Banana bread

 

Yeast bread

 

My pineapple poster

 

Baby elephant origami

Fair results

Fair judging is over and I’m glad it is because I hate waiting so long to get each thing judged. It’s fun to get ribbons though, and it was a lot cooler this year than previous years. 🙂

Central Park Hoodie –blue
Nemesis Socks –blue
Thorpe Hat –red
Fiddlehead Mittens –blue
Baby hat –I forget, either red or blue
Pillow –blue
Fruity Trivet –red
Tiny Cactus –red
Midnight Interlude drawing –blue
Spider Lily watercolor painting –red
Corgi drawing -blue
Poem –red
Short Story –blue
Origami –red
Horse breed scrapbook –red
Yeast bread –blue
Banana bread –blue
Poster on how to cut up a pineapple -blue
Doll clothes -red
Camera cozy -forget
Apron -red

4-H Projects are Finished!

Here is a quick post on what I am entering in the fair. I just finished my last item and I finally have a chance to post about it.

Central Park Hoodie – I love this sweater. Really seaming it was easier than I thought it would be.

Nemesis Socks – Beat my nemesis and finished these a couple months ago. They are so pretty!

Thorpe Hat – Made this while recovering from getting my wisdom teeth out in January.

Fiddlehead Mittens – Finished!!

Baby hat – shell stitch baby hat or something from Ravelry.

Pillow – fits a 12×12 pillow form, 18 granny squares, Caron Simply Soft.

Fruity Trivet – pattern from the Purl Bee

Tiny Cactus – OMG cutest amigurumi ever. 😛 Filled its pot with plastic pellets so it stands up nicely.

Midnight Interlude drawing – He was my pick to win the Derby.

Spider Lily watercolor painting – Tip: don’t buy 6×8 canvases at Michael’s. They don’t make 6×8 frames. This is a 6×4 photo frame minus the mat that came with it.

Corgi drawing

Poem – I wrote a limerick.

Short Story – I wrote a story called The Bus Ride of Doom.

Origami – I did a baby elephant from the book Crease + Fold as well as a dog from a kids origami book and I’m not sure which one to exhibit, though I’m leaning towards the baby elephant.

Horse breed scrapbook – there are 10 breeds featured.

Yeast bread – King Arthur Flour’s Classic White Sandwich Bread recipe. I’ll have a pic tomorrow. It rose really nicely!

Banana bread – Cooking Light’s Classic Banana Bread recipe. Tried and tested recipe. It’s really good.

Poster on how to cut up a pineapple (for poster about a cooking technique) – No picture yet, but it has really cute illustrations!

Doll clothes (shirt and skirt). It’s even cuter when my doll Molly is wearing the outfit. 🙂 Even found an American Girl doll clothes hanger. It’s so cute!! Plus I made the shirt out of a fat quarter which cost me like $2.85 or something so it is way cheaper than buying clothes from American Girl.

Camera cozy

Apron

Today I spent my entire morning baking breads, then I finished my corgi drawing. Then I went to work on my 4-H club’s booth with some other club members. Then we ate supper. Then I finished sewing the doll shirt. I have had a very busy day and I am going to bed now. 🙂

Will have more pictures in the morning.

The 31-mile Bike Ride

My sister and I rode our bikes on the Old Plank Road Trail on Monday to the next town over which was about 15 miles away.

It wasn’t really that bad to ride 15 or 16 miles one way except there were all these “pseudo hills” that seemed flat but were really slightly uphill. They were awful on the way there but on the way back we went 4 miles in no time at all because it was downhill a lot of the way.

When we arrived in the town we locked our bikes up at a nearby park. Then we ate sandwiches at a coffee shop and went shopping.

First we went to a used bookstore and my sister got the Canadian edition of Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix as well as Eragon.
Then we went to a bookstore and my sister bought the 3rd book in the Mysterious Benedict Society series (which I have yet to read any books in). She also pre-ordered John Green’s next book called The Fault in Our Stars. He is going to sign every single preordered book so that is really cool. 🙂 I met him in October and it was epic because he liked my pipe shirt.

Then we went to the music store and I bought new Aquila strings for my ukulele and Hal Leonard Ukulele Method Book Two. I hadn’t changed the strings on my ukulele since I got it for Christmas in 2009. They were not sounding as loud as they were when I first got the ukulele. I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to change the strings more often than that but I was really apprehensive about doing it.

Well, it took me about two hours to get it fully done because I had to redo two of them once each, but I restrung my ukulele. 🙂 It sounds much better now and for a few days every time I played my ukulele I would have to tune it a lot. Today, I picked up my ukulele and plucked the strings a bit and it sounded fine. It was only a little off, so the strings must be settling in nicely.

After we had gone to the music store, we went to the sewing store and I bought a fat quarter of yellow fabric. At first we were just browsing the fat quarters aimlessly and then I remembered that I needed more fabric to make a little shirt for my American Girl doll to go with the skirt I made a few months ago. Then we picked out this yellow fabric.

On the way home we stopped at McDonald’s and each got a 49 cent cone. It’s actually a good value because you get a lot of ice cream for only 49 cents. Then we biked home and were really tired. We ordered Domino’s pizza to be delivered and it was delicious.

In other news, I finished the outer Fiddlehead mittens and momentarily I am going to start the linings.

 

 

 

6th place!

Last weekend I showed my horseless horse coach’s horse, DC, at a local 4h show. I entered one class, Intro A dressage test. It’s the same one I did at the State Hunter & Dressage Show a few weeks ago. Thankfully DC wasn’t as antsy as he was at that show and my score improved by 3% and I got 6th place, which came with a two dollar gift certificate to a local tack shop, as well as a ribbon. 🙂 I don’t know how many people did the Intro A test but I was really happy to get a ribbon.

We were going to see the Harry Potter movie that day but my dressage time was scheduled for 2pm, when the movie ended. So I stayed at the fairgrounds and they went to go see the movie. It was fine, I actually don’t mind spending all day at a horse show. I like hanging out with horsey people.

Here is DC after he was finished showing for the day.

I got 53.1% which is better than the 50.63% I got at the last show. If the walk and trot had been faster and more forward, my score would have been higher, according to the score card. Also, I liked the bit the judge wrote on the score card – “Capable pair!”

It was a fun day even though I didn’t get to see the Harry Potter movie (and still haven’t seen it). I even made a Ravenclaw friendship bracelet that I was going to wear when I saw the movie. This is the best friendship bracelet I ever made.

Knits and Flowers

This is my first Fiddlehead mitten. I’m about 15 rows into the 2nd mitten. We had a heat wave this week and I was doing other crafts so I didn’t work on it all week until last night. The last 15-20 rows drove me insane because I kept messing up one stitch and I would have to frog it. Finally I got it finished, though.

This is Mr. Alligator, knitted from the Mochimochi Land book. He is pretty cute and his legs were a bit fiddly, and it took me a little while to sew the yellow to green in his mouth but he is really cute. He really looks like an alligator! I used Peaches n Cream cotton in Apple Green, and some random yellow acrylic for the mouth, and even more random black acrylic yarn for his eyes.

 

This week I sewed an apron for the fair since I’m in the clothing project. I bought the fabric at a local fabric/yarn store and it’s way prettier than anything Hobby Lobby would have. I bought the nylon webbing for the straps at Hobby Lobby though. This is the biggest thing I’ve ever sewed.

Here is the back of the apron.

I also sewed a camera cozy using this tutorial: http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/2009/02/ipodcamera-cozy-tutorial/

It’s purple on the inside and I just happened to have the daisy button laying around. I had to redo the elastic about 3 times because I kept sewing it on backwards. Ugh. Then for the apron I made double sure that it would work out the first time because I’m pretty sure the webbing would be harder to undo than the elastic.

 

 

Our yellow lilies are blooming but our Stargazer lilies still have a bit to go before they bloom. This is a yellow tiger lily that’s pretty neat because it turns downward.

This is a “Dreamland” lily that we got 5 plants of for $7 at the Garden Walk we went to. They had a plant sale. All of these are blooming right now and they are really pretty. 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first trophy!

On June 18th I was in a local 4-H horse show. I showed my horseless horse coach’s horse DC in Horseless Horse Groom (HHG) Hunt Showmanship and HHG Hunt Walk/Trot Equitation. In Showmanship (which I always think is kind of a crapshoot because you don’t know if the horse is going to behave and trot for you when you get in the ring) DC did not trot so I didn’t get a ribbon. However, in the Equitation class, I must have done pretty well because I got 1st place out of 8 people! It was my first 1st place in a riding class. I was expecting to get a blue ribbon but then I went up to the ribbon people and I got a trophy! I was really happy because this is my last year in 4-H so it was my last chance to show at the June Show and to get a trophy was amazing. 🙂

My coach and I waiting for my turn in showmanship.

I got DC to stand fairly square for the judge.

Trotting during the equitation class.

More trotting.

Me after the class with my trophy.Then the weekend after that was the State 4-H Hunter & Dressage Show. I did my first dressage test ever at this show on DC. He was being really antsy and not at all calm as he was at the June Show. While I was trotting around on him before my test, he tried to canter a few times on me and then he even did a little buck. I stayed on him, though.

I did the Intro A dressage test went pretty good, because he was being very sensitive and antsy and I felt like if I tried to get him into a proper working trot he would have starting cantering or something. Usually he is very calm but at this show he was definitely not.

I got 50.6% on my dressage test which isn’t too bad considering the state that DC was in. I didn’t mess up on the dressage pattern which was good. I had to memorize it, but it wasn’t that hard to memorize.

I’m just glad he didn’t do anything crazy while I was in the ring.

Trotting during the dressage test.

In other news, I finished my Nemesis socks on Wednesday and I started a pair of Fiddlehead Mittens! I was so mad because I had to rip back half the foot and the gusset and the heel flap because I made a tiny mistake BEFORE the heel flap that couldn’t have been fixed without frogging. But it didn’t take THAT long to reknit.

I am knitting my Fiddlehead mittens in Cascade 220 in dark grey (the same color I used for my Central Park Hoodie) and butter yellow, and the lining will be purple baby alpaca. It’s been going pretty well so far except I started on size 3’s and had to frog it because it was turning out half an inch or more too large. I restarted on size 2 needles and it’s going well. The pattern looks nice but I don’t have pictures. Honestly I’ve been so busy doing other things that I haven’t had a chance to blog about my horse shows until now.

Our garden is flourishing. We have a tiny pepper growing on our pepper plant and our lettuce THOROUGHLY enjoyed the stretch of cool weather we had in June and it was HUGE. I think next year I will plant a square of lettuce every two weeks instead of all at once because we didn’t really eat it before it got bitter but we have a more manageable amount of lettuce now.

Daisies and Chicago

On Monday my sister and I rode our bikes 12.5 miles and took some neat pictures of daisies that were blooming. It was really nice out and we went to McDonald’s halfway through and got snack size Rollo Mcflurries. Full of caramelly and chocolate-y goodness!

Here’s an updated picture of our vegetable garden. This is week 3.

Our tomatoes have flowers and I think one of them just made a teeny tiny tomato. The lettuce is already bigger than when we took this picture and we used some of our herbs this week when we made Sage Pesto Pasta. It was creamy and delicious!

I’m in the sewing project for 4-H this year and I am going to make an apron and enter it in the fair. We went to a local yarn/fabric shop over the weekend and I bought some fabric. I really like the colors of this fabric. It’s way prettier than anything Hobby Lobby would have.

On Tuesday I went to Chicago with the Art Club from my school and we went to the Art Institute of Chicago. It was epic because I did this huge semester-long project on The Old Guitarist by Picasso in my honors humanities class in high school and I got to see the actual painting there! Chicago is the biggest city I have ever been to and it was intense. It was a beautiful day, breezy and warm but not too warm.

Skyline of Chicago

Sears Willis Tower

Crown Fountain in Millennium Park

The Bean

There were a lot people protesting and these are some mounted police that followed the protesters.

The buildings in Chicago are way bigger than any other buildings I’ve ever seen and it was pretty intense. This is the Chicago Tribune building.

I just thought this was a pretty scene.
I had a great time in Chicago and it was really cool. I want to go back and go to the Shedd Aquarium and go back to the Art Institute. We spent most of our time in the Modern Wing so I didn’t get to look at the really old paintings. Also they have a horse exhibit right now at the Field Museum which I would want to see but I probably won’t get back to Chicago ever to be able to see it.

In closing, here is a silly picture of Jasmine: