Baby Blanket NOT Done

Doggone it, I had 3 more white squares to make and supposedly I'd be done but when I laid them out this morning my worst fear was confirmed. The squares aren't as big as they're supposed to be. How come? I swear I knitted them fairly loose, any looser and they'd be holey. The blanket is supposed to measure 31" square. Mine is 25" square. I realize when I crochet the squares together that's going to add some length and width but not enough. I'm going to knit one more set all the way around and then join them all. I hate teeny little baby blankets and refuse to finish this until I'm happy with it. Besides, I still have 1 1/2 more seasons of Gilmore Girls to watch and its too hot and humid to be outside anyway. (my excuse and I'm sticking to it).

I've tried to upload a picture of it but my computer is too slow or the network is giving me problems or something, I've had a devil of a time with files the last couple days so I'll wait and add the pix later.

In Memory

My husband was finally placed in his final resting place Friday. He was thrilled when he heard there was to be a new State Veterans Cemetery near his home town. Building was started before he passed away but the official opening wasn't until December, 2007.

He was placed in the columbarium which took another 6 months to complete but it is finally ready. When I drove up to the cemetery I noticed the flags were at half mast. The director told me that the flags are placed at half mast all day whenever someone will be buried there. That was a nice honor that I appreciated. After I got home and looked at my pictures I wondered what the 3rd flag was. The first of course was the US Flag and the second was the South Carolina Flag but what was the third? After investigating all over the internet this morning I finally figured it out, its the POW/MIA flag and under the picture it says

"You Are Not Forgotten" . Very appropriate.

The very first cemetery to honor the nations soldiers was planned in 1862 when Congress enacted legislation to build one. Now, more than 3 million Americans, including veterans of every war and conflict—from the Revolutionary War to the present war—are honored by burial in the national cemeteries. Approximately 17,000 acres of land from Hawaii to Maine, and from Alaska to Puerto Rico are devoted to the memorialization of those who served this nation. More than 300 recipients of the Medal of Honor are buried in VA's national cemeteries. Today, more than 24 million veterans and Reservists and National Guard members with 20 years qualifying service (who are entitled to retired pay or would be entitled, if at least 60 years of age), have earned the honor of burial in a national cemetery. Its an honor and I'm proud my husband wanted to be part of it.

Bernat Softee Baby Blanket

I know, you thought I was doing nothing but cutting trees, watching TV and otherwise wasting my time but NOT TRUE. I have a new great grandson due in October and I've been busy making a baby blanket. I don't normally crochet but I thought this was so cute I just had to try it. I show the original pattern picture on the left, its from Bernat's free patterns called "Double Diamond Crochet Blanket". So far I have 3 or 4 more blue marle squares to make and then the white squares, I should get it finished by Friday if I stick with it. I've got lots of blue marle and will have lots of white left but need some more of the darker blue and I'm picking that up today. The yarn is Bernat's Softee Baby.

I want to make EZs Baby Surprise Jacket on the LK 150 out of the blue and use the blue marle and white yarn for the stripes. I'm not going to try to do the cables this time because I'm not sure where to do them although I suspect its on the 2 edges but I need to get this finished because I want to make booties and a hat as well and if there's time of course I'll machine embroider something on the blanket and maybe the sweater as well.

Who knows, I may even make the little teddy bear before I'm finished (freebie on Bernat's web site as well). BUT my Grandaughter has a little girl and that little girl loves her doll so I think I should make her a sweater and hat for her doll as well. We'll see, I do have to keep the house clean for potential buyers and keep the yard up and all that rediculous stuff so we'll see how far I get.

PS If anyone knows how to join all these squares when I'm finished, please write me. The pattern says to make them all and then "join as shown" Unfortunately they have a graph for where to put the 3 colored squares but nothing to tell you how to join them. I don't think sewing them together would look so nice. PLEASE SOMEONE EMAIL ME...or put it in the comments so everyone who wants to try this will know the answer.

Limbless

Tree guys came today and I'm now limbless in the backyard. This is so great, there's actually a bit of sun shining through to the ground which will help keep the yard drier and now I won't have to worry about tree limbs hurting the gutter guards that actually cost about as much as the tree limb job. Puppy is having a ball, they chipped all the limbs back into the yard and he's running around sniffing and carrying bits of tree pieces around in his mouth. Here's what the roof line now looks like minus the tree limbs, soooo different without them. Wow, the picture makes it look like I live in town, I'll go get a picture from the porch to show you I really do live in the woods still.

pix show before, after and woods behind fence

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EZ's Knitting Workshop Book and Surprise Jacket DVD on EBay

Just up on EBay today (Saturday)

I've listed Elizabeth Zimmerman's book, Knitting Workshop on EBay today. I just bought the book and ended up with 2 because one seller didn't send for a month, you can find it here: http://tinyurl.com/5rof29
Also I've put the Elizabeth Zimmerman DVD, Surprise Jacket on (same thing, I ended up with 2). http://tinyurl.com/55eo6s

I bought these because http://www.junebugsplace.com/surprise.htm has a free machine knit pattern for the surprise Jacket and I wanted the variations from the book and then decided it would be great to have the DVD as well.

Tree, Ponds and Blueberries

When my husband designed our house he wanted it to look like it grew in the woods. Unfortunately, he didn't realize, too many trees close to a house can add lovely shade in the hot summer but it can also ruin your gutters and roof. So--today I had a tree guy come and give me an estimate on cutting down tree limbs that finally grew enough to rest on my roof. Phooey! I like the shade, but the tree limbs need to go. You can see from the picture, the branches are on the roof.

After wandering around with the tree guy, Biscuit and I went out to check on our pet fish. We have a wonderful family of little fish who live in our pond. I like to feed them and watch them all swarm up when I throw out food. Biscuit likes it too because I always leave a little on the dock for him to eat. If I fed Biscuit fish food he wouldn't eat it but it gobbles it up when he thinks the fish are going to get it.

Check out my blueberries. They are just now beginning to ripen and I forgot to take anything to carry them in so will go back out but did get enough for breakfast before we went in. The bushes came from a friend in Mississippi who claimed he had prize-winning blueberries. I don't know if they'd win a prize but I love them. They are planted right beside the pond so its a nice place for Biscuit to play while I feed the fish and pick berries. (he likes to wade in the edge of the water and can't figure out what it is that squeaks and jumps in the water when

he gets near (its a bunch of little frogs)

YAHOO! Project Runway Season 5 starts Wed

Thank Goodness something decent is starting on Bravo TV this week, Project Runway (starts Wednesday 7/16). I started watching this back when my husband was alive and he hated it, I loved it so I used to run up to the loft to watch on my tiny little TV. NOW I get to watch it on the bigger than life TV in HD. I can't wait.

I found this with a Google search in case you've never seen the show:
http://bloggingprojectrunway.blogspot.com/2008/07/season-5-first-3-episodes.html

I subscribed to the RSS feed of the blog http://bloggingprojectrunway.blogspot.com/

Can you tell I'm excited. I hope this season is as good as Season 4 was.

BTW, if you belong to the Yahoo knittingmachine group, we've been talking about the new show on TLC, Ashley Paige. Forget it, if you missed it, go ahead and watch the rerun of the first show, Its pretty sad! One of the members of that group actually designed her first bikini's and felt as if she was taken advantage of. If you watch that first episode you'll see more people being taken advantage of...especially the machine knitter who is told to crank out as many swimsuits as he possibly can in the shortest possible time.

I tried to watch it with an open mind but it was BAD. I'm planning on watching it to the bitter end unless something better comes along No, I'm not a TV addict but I like to sit and knit in the evenings and what the heck, I can do that while I watch TV so that's what I do. The TV keeps me company.