Well, I did it! As I mentioned last week...and the week before, I was aiming to finish a paracord can coozie. I wanted to finish it for the blog post last week but sadly missed my deadline. However, I continued to work through my frustration and uncertainties and this week I finished it!
It's by no means perfect or even close to it. But it is, in fact, a completed can coozie. It will hold my beverage (whatever that may be) and keep it refreshingly cool :)
If you want to make your own can coozie, set aside a lot of hours and mentally prepare to stay calm. No matter how angry or confused you get, just remember that it will undoubtedly turn out awesome and you will be sooooo proud you finished it! Also, it uses a lot of cord (about 25 feet of each color):
Here is my journey:
I started my coozie base off Instructables.com's directions. I got through the top loop with the clasp (the black strand) and then I just started weaving and didn't stop:
I had finished the entire first row before I went back and looked at the instructions...where I realized I made about 10 too many loops. Oops. With 25 feet of cord, it takes a little longer than usual to make a loop. So at this point I went back and took out a few loops before I got sick of that and stopped.
I tried to follow the instructions after that, but things weren't lining up so I did my own thing.
I think it's safe to say if I would have followed the instructions the entire way it would look much much better. But, it serves it's purpose and I'm happy with it!
Now, I just kept at my weave and looped and looped and looped. Keep in mind, I had to do other parts of my job (such as doing awesome Facebook giveaways for you all) during the course of making this coozie which is why it took me a little longer.
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Seriously, I would have ruined my loops and had to re-tighten every loop if I hadn't had a fid. Although, you will certainly be able to complete this without one!
This was a very exciting and frustrating point. It was starting to take shape and my worries about not entirely following the directions were diminishing.
The frustrating parts were:
1) I had 20+ feet of paracord I had to pull through every single loop that constantly got caught on the 2nd strand or my chair or my knee
2) It kept sliding down the can so I had to re-position it a lot.
Luckily, just a couple rows later the sliding stopped considerably and it was much nicer.
If you could see my face in the picture you would be a big smile.
The handle part was over! I was basically on Cloud 9 at this point.
The home stretch.
I went back to the instructions to figure out how to do the bottom. I followed it, but it looked a little different since I also didn't think to check before I got to the last row to see if anything was different. It was.
So I don't even want to show you the bottom, because it is NOT pretty. But since I like you guys, I will.
Don't laugh.
Remember, I'm also new at this so I think I should be given a little leeway :)
In case you're wondering, refer back to instructables.com for how to do the bottom. The last, and oh so satisfying part, is to take the two strands and pull them through the coozie, snip as close as you can get to the base (which is close because the bottom part will pull up) and burn the ends with a lighter.
HERE IT IS!!!!
I persevered and finished my coozie. I will enjoy it for the rest of my life!
This was the most delicious tasting pop ever.
Paracord love,
Lauri
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