Stitches Midwest, plus late summer projects

First, in exciting yarn news, I attended Stitches Midwest earlier this month for the first time! I decided to jump right in and attend the fashion show on Friday night, where I got a lot of inspiration and made note of a few specific patterns I wanted to make someday.

The next day, I attended the convention, which had a lot of beautiful booths stuffed with yarn, looking like this:

I bought some beautiful Freia ombre yarn and made a beautiful cowl from it. I have been working on some projects with teeny yarn and needed a project that knitted up quick. This sure did the trick:

I have also been working on some more charity projects. I completed a baby blanket with some odds and ends, in a Bavarian crochet style:

I have also been using up other scraps to make more 7 x 7 squares for my crochet group's afghan donation to Warm Up America.

Here is a Starburst Square that was fun to make:

Probably it needed a few more rows to morph from circle into square, but I think it'll still sew in fine.

I also did a nifty little "Yarn Clouds" square:

I like this color combo a lot.

The last square was a pattern I got out of a dish cloth book I own. 

This was an interesting one because you leave the red yarn uncut and work each row between the other rows. It's hard to explain.

I am working on some leg warmers right now, and a poncho. I've got a big back log of projects waiting for me, so I need to keep going like a machine!