Removing the Fireplace

There is actually a man standing on top of the block. There are 5 courses and solid cement poured down the middle. It would only have taken the man a couple of hours to remove the cement blocks except that the bozo who built it used 4" galvanized nails to reinforce the block. They were hammered in a grid with the nails being less than 1/4" apart. Rebar would have been easier to move. This room only had electric baseboard heat and the heaters did not work. The fireplace was unsafe so we are removing it and replacing it with a pellet stove. We have another pellet stove in the living room that we installed last year and our propane furnace did not kick on at all. We spent $300 on pellets for heat last year. This year we were able to purchase the pellets wholesale and will save quite a bit more. Tomorrow will be spent cleaning up the cement dust which is covering everything in the addition. Once the room is finished it will be the girls school/play room.

Bee Fields Finished (Almost!)

I am not very good at blocking but she is done. I hope to have better pictures tomorrow when dh can help me take pictures with natural sunlight.

Bee Fields

This is bee hive chart finished and a very small start to the swarm! I hand dyed kona fingering and am very pleased with the result. It shows a little lighter than it actually is. I like this pattern but the rows are beginning to be VERY long :)

This is Kim's Fault!

Finished! and On-Time MS3

With an interruption of 2 weeks in China, 2 weeks of jetlag and 1 week of being ill, I finished my stole last weekend and washed and blocked it this week. I didn't like the stole when I saw the wing added but decided to knit it instead of the alternative. I'm so glad I did. I love the way it looks (even though I didn't do too good at draping it on my daughter :) One day I will knit this one again but for now I have 2 shawls on the needles. One is the cascading hearts from HeartStrings and the other is a spiral shawl from Gathering of Lace. Peacock Shawl is also on the list. I was going to take it to China but after starting several times, I realized it would take more concentration than I would be able to give it in China.

China shopping was fun. I bought 5 lbs. of laceweight cashmere for a whopping $75. I also bought several cones of yarn that say cashwool from Lana Borgossia but when I looked it up online the seamist color was green but on my cone it was red. I guess it's like anywhere else, buyer beware. I am pleased with the yarn and one day it will be a shawl even if I don't know what kind of wool it is.

Miscellaneous

I finally chose a shawl to work on for China. I'm going to do the spiral shawl again. It is an easy pattern to memorize. It is also easy to put it down and then start again when you pick it up. I hand dyed 50/50 alpaca/wool in navy and royal blue. I'm pleased with how the dye job turned out but the jury is still out on how I'll like it as a shawl.

I'm also working on the cascading hearts faroese shawl in HA's dk weight kona. I dyed it red and it came out variegated. I LOVE this yarn and this shawl combination. I'm about 1/2 finished. I would have loved to take it to china with me but I need to concentrate on the chart and I can't do that in China. I have a lot to get done in the next 4 days so probably won't get to knit very much until Friday when I'll have plenty of time on the planes :)

Mystery Stole #3

This is my mystery stole after clue #2 is completed. There is one small mistake near the beginning of Clue #1 and I keep telling myself it isn't that noticeable. I'm about 1/4 of the way through Clue #3. We leave for China on Friday so I know that I won't be finishing this stole with everyone else. I hope to have it done by the end of August though!