Love it!

What do you think about it? I love it, the colors all blended perfectly. This is actually 2 columns wider than the pattern called for. It still needs to be blocked again, but before I do that, I think I'm going to knit 6 more squares. My original plan had been to knit 63 squares all along and make it a 56"x63", but I wanted to start another project so I decided 56" x 49" was fine. Because I couldn't block all of my squares to 7 1/2" it's not exactly the measurements it should have been. I've got so much sock yarn left over, it shouldn't be that big of a pain to knit up 6 more squares. I've already got 1 extra.

So I've decided I'm going to enter this in the Rogers County Fair. I just need to figure out who to talk to and how to get it entered.

Nothing left but the sewin'

This is a picture of the 1st half of the square that have been blocked. Look closely, do you see your donated yarn in one of those squares? I wish I knew how to make the names appear when you hover your mouse over a square. Not that I can remember exactly which person gave me which yarn, but I do remember some of them, like the dark turquoise, 3rd row from the bottom, 4th from the left came from a great competitor in the Amazing Race...Kara, or better known as Knit4ever. The bright orange with the reddish stripes on the 3rd row from the bottom. That is a joined effort. The golden orange came from Zoe, aka Tekgirl and the red stripped came from Michelle, aka Vaguegirl. See the one pink square, 2nd row from the top all the way to the right. That yarn came from Kimber, aka KnitKimberKnit. The picture makes them kind of hard to see, but I'm going to have to tag them somehow. Here's another picture of some that are still on my blocking board. See the light blue square at the top of the picture in the 3rd column? That came from my good friend in the Traveling Scarves Groups, Nancy aka MsPalmTree. She also sent the yarn for the turquoise square in the next row 2nd column. 3rd row down last column, the turquoise square with a hint of greenish yellow in the corner also came from KnitKimberKnit. In the 4th row down the 1st column, the varigated green square came from Jody26, and the denim colored stripes, came from Tekgirl. The pink in the 1st column at the bottom of the picture came from Vaguegirl.

I need to take some more pictures, I've got some other squares, I mean donors that I need to acknowledge. I'm planning on spending the weekend sewing this baby together.

Thank you all so much for your donations, and I'd like to pay it forward. If anyone wants to make the barn raising quilt, I've got lots of scraps that I can send out into the world.

Barn Raising Quilt

I don't have any pictures yet, but all the squares are knit and half have been blocked. I'm very excited to get this blanket finished.

This is a picture of the newest project on my needles... The Susie Hoodie. I'm making it with knit picks "Wool of the Andes" in cranberry color. I've completed about 20 rows, the celtic cable took a few rows to wrap my brain around, but now I'm catching on and it's moving along great. This will be the perfect sweater hoodie for this winter. I'll continue to post updates as I progress.

I should have completed pictures of the BRQ by the end of the weekend.

It's cool to be cool

I don't know if I mentioned in my last post that our AC/Heat unit was on the fritz. It is a Geo Thermal unit, the kind that has wells buried in the back yard with antifreeze and it keeps the water circulating through it at a constant 70°. This keeps the electric bill down and helps with the hot water costs. Anyways, the guy came out on Friday, May 29th to do whatever he could to make it run. After about 3 hours, he told me he could fix this and that and it would cost approximately $3,500 and maybe last a few more years. The unit was put in the 39th week of 1985. So it's old. Or, I could spend $7,600 and get a brand new unit that will last 25 to 40 years. I told him to order the new unit.

It was a hot, muggy week and a half, but on Tuesday, June 8th, two guys showed up at the house at 8am. They worked on it until 7pm, but it's done. They did have to make a couple of adjustments. The old unit had an air return in the ceiling of our hallway with the thermostate in the hall also. This unit being brand new stainless steel (did I say, it's really pretty) has a return on the side instead of the back so they had to cut a 24"x24" hole in my dining room wall and that's where the return and thermostate are located now. I was hoping that the hole could be cut closer to the floor, but nope. It's pretty much right in the middle of the wall, which really sucks. I asked them if there was anything else they could do and they mubbled off a few things that didn't really make any sense to me. Oh, I was at work during the installation, so the mubbling took place on the phone. And they didn't tell me the hole would be 24"x24". I thought it was going to be like 9"x9" (like an air vent). It's probably alot more noticable since my walls in the kitchen and dining area are a tuscan terra cotta reddish color. I wonder if I could paint the grate?

By the time they were finished it was 91° in the house. It took several hours to get it to a comfortable 75° and it was so nice to be able to sleep without sweating.

Let's see, my son moved out into his own apartment. That left a vacant bedroom and I had some big ideas of turning it into my knitting room. I wanted cubbie shelves on one wall and I was going to have all of my yarn sorted and displayed beautifully. I wanted to put a big chair in there and a tv so I could sit back and knit. Also, I wanted to move my desk and computer into that room. My big ideas quickly dwindled when Chelsea said, so is that going to be Hayden's new room......If you've been reading my blog for very long, you might remember that a few years ago when Chelsea was pregnant. I remodeled my house for the new baby. I turned the formal living and dining room into a mini suite. Chelsea and Brennan's room was the living area and Hayden was in the dining room side. I thought about putting a wall between the rooms, but ended up running out of time and money. They have a king size quilt hanging as a room divider. So back to my original story. Chelsea wanted to know if Hayden could move into the other room. Of course I wouldn't deny my sweet boy anything and off I went to purchase new paint, curtains, a book shelf, etc. We got everything painted and set up and last night was his first night in his new room. I was a little worried that I would be up all night. But he didn't wake me up at all. I never heard him even once.

So, I think my next plan is to go ahead and put up the wall between Chelsea/Brennan's room and Hayden's old room. I'll turn his old room into my new yarn room/office.