Crayon Keeper (or needles & hooks), tree, & challenge

I bought the recent 2009 issue of "Better Homes and Gardens Creative Collection: More Fast & Fabulous Quilting Ideas" recently. On page 108 is a pattern for making your own "Crayon Keeper" by Linda Lum Debono. As I said in my last post, I used the left over fabric from the quilt that I made for my toddler to make this. I used the backing and the binding fabric. He loves it. Now I just need to make sure that the crayons always find it back in the pockets.

This pattern looked like so many knitting needle holders that I have seen. I just had to adjust the size a bit so that the needles would not stick out of the top. I made myself a pirate one to hold my double pointed needles. I might make 2 more for my circular needles and my crochet hooks. I have a large holder for my knitting needles already. I also made a red floral holder for my husband's grandmother who crochets. I actually meant to make her a crochet hook holder in 2007, but I never got around to it. All of the fabric is stash fabric.

Here is a picture of the Christmas tree that I am knitting. The link to the pattern is in the previous blog post. It looks a little funny right now, because I just transferred it onto circular needles. It is really easy. If you make this, my tip is to place one color stitch marker on the 1st stitch and a different color stitch marker on all the other increase stitches. This way you don't need to keep counting to see when you need to increase again. This might even be cute on a small scale as an ornament.

Today I am starting the craft challenge again. However this time I am allowing myself $20 a pay check (twice a month). The reason for this is 2 part. Christmas and birthdays are coming up and I might need to spend a little more on supplies to make gifts. The second part is that I need to real in my spending. Without a set budget, I spend way to much money on craft supplies. Yes I have kept my spending to items that I use right away, but I still spend to much in my opinion. I have also joined a different challenge on ravelry.com. It's called "cold sheeping." Meaning that I have said that I would not buy any more yarn for a certain period of time. For some it is one year. My yarn stash is small compared to others. My fabric stash is not small, lol. Anyway, I signed up to go "cold sheep" until April. There is an exception to this though. I am allowed to buy yarn to make a gift (but I will try to use my stash instead), and also to finish a project. A friend of mine said that I could shop in her stash if I wanted to. My biggest goal is to use my entire Lily's Sugar'n Cream yarn stash. I've already used up 6 skeins by making dishcloths for Christmas gifts. Of course I will keep a few for myself, but only after picking out the gift ones.