Update

Lou asked me to post an update. He is actively working on sewing the squares together but was a bit delayed due to a couple of commission pieces that had to be finished. The blanket should be done soon, though, and on its way.

Progress on Square - It's blocking time

Well I had great ideas for Melissa's block. I decided to use some of the stash I acquired from Freecycle of Lio*n Brand Homespun because I know she has used it and likes it. I contemplated various stitch patterns and finally decided to make a yarn painting. A very crude yarn painting as it turns out. This is my first attempt mixing colours and certainly my first time using yarn to make an illustration! I ripped and restarted many section, more than once sometimes. I tried just going free hand and realized that is a HUGE mistake for a beginner. So I sketched out what I wanted to try to do in yarn with some crayons:

I can assure you that the block looks nothing like this! I realized after numerous restarts and frogging that in order to do something like this again in the future (shoot me now!) I really ought to have done SSK, and K2Tog sort of stitch to give a more graceful look.
This is how it looks just pinned, shot with no flash.

This is how it looks shot with a flash.
Gotta love the flash! Makes it look so much nicer. I doubt very much it will look this flat and pulled together, even after blocking but there it is. The design was inspired by New Hampshire landscape.

Will get it posted quite soon!

Samantha (Dharma) in the Bay Area CA