Flu

Everything in my life has been sidelined by the flu over the past two days. I am not enjoying myself. Fever, chills, aches, pains, cough. You name it, I got it.

To make matters worse, I was supposed to sing the National Anthem with my choir at the Braves Game tonight. Not fair, not fair, not fair. It's not everyday you get the chance to sing in front of that many people. Oh well, maybe next year.

There's also been no knitting or anything else remotely crafty going on because of the flu and the three year old has had carte blanche to destroy the house as he sees fit as well. At this point in time, do I care? Not even remotely. I'll call in the Hasmat teams to clean up later.

Healing vibes are being gratefully accepted. Please send them!

Back to Knitting

I've been plugging slowly along on Buttercup (Ravelry Link). It's very difficult to show the progress being made so far, but I am almost to the point where I begin working on the body. I've begun the lace on the front and I'm almost to the point where the body and sleeves are separated. At this point, it looks way too big, but I think (hope) it's an optical illusion caused by the raglan shaping.


I made another modification, but this time it's not anything big. There's a point in the pattern that calls for you to cast on 46 sts on a separate needle. I didn't have a separate needle free that was the correct size so here's what I did:

Instead of casting on the 46 sts on the separate needle, I continued with the pattern while skipping that section. When I got to the point of purling across the 46 sts, I did a backwards loop cast on. I did this one at a time and purled each onto the right needle before casting on for the next stitch. Similar in theory to picking up each stitch and knitting it on, which I hate to do.

This was quite tedious and I don't recommend it, but it did work. What I should have done was just find a bleeping pencil and cast on to it. It would have saved tons of time. Of course, it wouldn't have been the right size, but there ya go.


At first this pattern was going incredibly slow. Not the patterns fault, mine. I don't knit well in silence. I need something to listen to, usually a tv show. My favorite is Top Gear (UK version) but since the season has wrapped up, I've been left with nothing. I don't have cable, I have to watch over the interet. Another difficulty is that most tv shows just don't do it for me. Evidently I have the attention span of a flea and if a show doesn't wow me from the start, I ain't watchin' it.

But now I'm totally hooked on a show that has plenty of episodes to keep me going. You might have heard me say that I'm about 20 billion years behind on movies and tv. This is no exception. I'm now officially addicted to Battlestar Galactica. No, not the old one with Dirk Benedict, but the one that debuted in 2005ish and is already officially cancelled. Like I said, 20 billion years behind.

My fingers have been flying on the needles since I started watching this. Unfortunately, I have to only watch this at either naptimes or after the kids have gone to bed. There's just too much mature crap going on for an 8 and 3 year old to be watching it. But man, is it ever good. How did I miss this when it came out? Oh yeah, that's right, no cable. I'm hoping to remedy that real soon.

The All Things Shea Etsy Store!

I finally started up my Etsy store!

It's only taken me a good two years to get on the stick and get things rolling. Shea's the name, procrastination seems to be my game! Well, maybe not procrastination, more like having needy kids or something. I only have six items in the store so far, many more just waiting to be photographed and inventoried. Do you know how long it took me yesterday to get the six items up in the store? About three hours. How pitiful is that? Three hours. Thanks, kids. My day went like this: start something, stop to deal with kid, add two more words to the item description, stop to deal with kid. etc. etc. etc.

Obviously I won't be contending in the big leagues for a while. But I have made a start! Here's what's up there now:

Polymer Clay Pendants!

For every pendant purchased, a black silk cord will be included so that you or your loved one will be able to wear it right away!

I have more jewelry and some fiber stuff coming. This is just the beginning. :)

More Flames

Remember how I said the new computer desk needed a chair or bench? Well, it's got one now and it's perfectly decorated for the guys in the house!

When I finished making the roman shades in the boys room, I had a lot of the flame fabric left over. So I decided to repurpose my grandmother's old vanity table bench and make it the new computer seating.

Here's the before:



The tools used:




And now the after:




Didn't it turn out great? It now matches the desk and the boys love it. My grandmother would be thrilled to know that this bench is still being used today by her great grandkids. She was pretty crafty too, I think she'd even like the flames.


Did I mention that I had a ton of the flame fabric leftover? Still do. I also covered their light switch plate. It ended up being a bit crooked, but it's not as noticeable in real life as it is in the pic:



That, I think, will be the last of the flames for a while. Think the boys would go for something pink next? There's got to be something girly in the house. I mean, there is at least one girl living here. Jeez.

Buttercup

A new project is on the needles! Of course, it may come right back off the needles if things look like they're going downhill. I think I became very spoiled by the Dark Green Day Sweater Vest. I was practically obsessed with that project and I'm just not feeling that for my current one.

I'm making Buttercup, by Heidi Kirrmaier. Here's the Ravelry link: Buttercup
I'm using Hobby Lobby's Love this Cotton! in Sage. Here's the progress so far:



I've already made quite a few modifications to the pattern. This is an A-line top, but I'm planning on omitting the a-line part and make it more fitted. I'll also still have gathers under the bust, but not the back. So far so good, especially since I'm only a few rows into it. It's being knitted in the round and has raglan sleeves, so I'll be able to tell sooner rather than later if I like it or not. That's the plan anyway. :)

Have a great weekend!

Dark Green Sweater and Computer Woes

At last, at last, I'm free at last. The computer transfers are complete. All did not go well though. I did lose one thing - my blog reading list! I think I need to change blog readers so that this won't happen again. This is the second time this has happened, except this time there was so much more to lose!

If I usually come by your site and don't in the next couple of weeks, do please send me a quick shout out. I lost most of the sites that I frequent. I'm so bummed by this. It's like losing all your friends at once. I remember some of the site names, just not all. I believe I have recovered most of them, but I'm betting there are one or three that I've missed getting back.

Oh, and if you have a blog that you'd like me to visit, leave me a comment as well. I'm always looking for new places to lurk look at!

On to the good news - I finally have a pic to show you of the Dark Green Day Sweater:


I'm so in love with this sweater! This was the most fun knitting project that I have ever undertaken, and I'm not saying that lightly. I never once grew tired of it or bored in any way. It fairly flew off the needles. I can't recommend this sweater vest enough. I'm definitely going to make more of the designer's patterns.


I also had a great bit of luck on Craigslist this morning. Since I have a spare computer sitting around, I decided that it needed some place to sit, a desk perhaps? Check out what I got for a mere fifteen dollars:
It's in pristine condition, practically brand new and fits perfectly in the one spot that I had for it. Which, by the way, is not where you see it pictured. This was before it went upstairs to it's new home. I also found in my garage a great bench for it. The bench needs to be painted and re-upholstered, but it is perfect for this desk.

New Computer, Little Progress

Where has Shea been for the last couple of days? Sitting in front of two computers - my old dinosaur one and my shiny, new, lightening fast one. I'm trying to get all my old data transferred over and it's taking forever. The transfer can only go as fast as the dinosaur lets it and that's not very d#mn fast.

So, no pics to show you as I'm using my spouse's laptop and no new topics to discuss since I've just been staring at two monitors for hours on end. I'm hoping this will be completed in the next couple of days. The Eldest wants it done quickly as well. He's getting the old one to use for homework and games. He's pestering me to death about it. He already has a plan about which game to play first. :)

Peach Jam

I swear I've been on a roll this past week. Sally Homemaker has nothing on me I tell ya.

We have a White Peach Tree in our back yard and everything decided to ripen this week. And for the first time, I made peach jam! Yay me!

In process

Finished!

There's more coming, but I'll have to take care of it after the weekend. I'm not sure if I'll make more jam or if I'll just freeze the peaches. I had the Eldest help me with pitting and deworming the peaches. You should have seen his face when he came across the first worm. Ewww Yuck! This is the kid that hates all kinds of bugs and things and hates getting his hands dirty. He's such a city boy like his dad. It's so funny to watch them with stuff like this. He thinks all peaches and fruit comes out of the garden like they have them at the stores. I tried to explain about pesticides and all that, but I think he'd rather eat the chemicals than play with the worms. :)

I finished my Dark Green Day vest last night, but I have no pics as yet. I'll save those for next week. Have a great weekend!

Dumb Cat

Check out where our outside kitty decided to take a cat nap - the left front tire on the Mom van:


She's not the smartest kitty on the block.

Roman Shade Inflamed

A while back we moved the boys into the same bedroom and turned the spare bedroom into a gigantic playroom. The decor in their shared bedroom was still coyboy nursery themed and the Eldest hasn't been very happy with it. Now that the Youngest is three and a half and into Hotwheels as much as his brother, we decided to make that the theme of their room.


We started by decorating the walls with vinyl decals of cars. There were four cars to the pack (can be found at Joann's), but they didn't originally come with flames as seen below. The flames came with a gigantic tire decal. I decided that there were already more than enough flames with the tire and moved some flames to come out the pipes in the back of each car. I placed all of the decals strategically around the room just for fun.

Another problem that had to be overcome were the windows. They had blinds on them, but the Youngest spent the better part of his naptime one afternoon destroying them. It was far to late by the time I realized he was doing this for me to save them.

I really want to make roman shades for the kitchen, but wanted to practice first before I tackled making them out of expensive fabrics. So I found a wonderful roman shade tutorial online and got to it. This was the result:

Please be aware that the children picked out the fabric for the curtains for their room, not me. :)

I just noticed that the top right of the right hand shade got loose when we put the screws into the molding of the window. I'll fix that as soon as the Youngest gets up from his nap today. But besides that, didn't they turn out cute? In a very rugged boyish way of course. All in all, I'm pretty proud of this sewing project.

If you'll notice, I left a curtain rod up over the windows. These did hold a bandana valance at one time. I'm planning on suspending a bunch of hotwheels cars on the rod with varying lengths of ribbon or yarn or something. If it turns out well, you'll get to see a pic of that later also.

See ya tomorrow!

Typical Monday

Wanna know how my week is starting out? With a typical Monday, that's how.

1. I have so much to tell you about what I did this weekend, but guess what? My camera battery died, so I can't show you. It'll have to be tomorrow.
2. My children are driving me to the brink. Fights all day, defiance of Mom all day, you get the picture. School can't come soon enough. Countdown 'til August 10th has begun.
3. I dropped a needle out of my sweater and now have to fix 10 stitches.
4. I now have a blazing headache.

I may take an aspirin and cap it off with a Margarita. That should fix things me.

Sometimes You Just Get Lucky

Dinner time is always a challenge and never a pleasure in my house. Not one child likes what's on the menu unless the menu is either hot dogs or pasta with white sauce. It's always stressful for me and tonight was no exception. We had Fruit Sauced Chicken Breast and Green Bean Almandine, but this time we ate by candlelight.

Turns out that kids will eat a lot of food in order to blow out candles. Who Knew? For every bite eaten, a candle was blown out. I kept the lighter handy. :)

*********

Significant progress is being achieved on the knitting project:


Dark Green Day Vest Progress:


Have a great weekend!

DIY Fun - Joint Compound & Stencils

Ever wanted to add a little subtle pizzazz to your walls or cabinets for little to no money? Using joint compound and stencils is a great way to do this and I'll show you how to do it on the cheap!

Basic Supplies:

Joint Compound - you can get much smaller size buckets of it than this. This is what I had in the garage already.
Wall or Cabinet Surface
Putty Knife - I couldn't find mine for this tutorial so I grabbed a joint knife instead.
Stencil(s)
Painter's Tape - please don't use masking tape, it will pull up paint from your wall's surface.
Tape Measure
Pencil
Level - optional



Step 1:

Working on a clean dry surface, use a tape measure to accurately pinpoint where the stencil should be placed. For this tutorial I am using a scrap board, so I did not measure anything.

Step 2:

Place stencil on the surface and tape it down with the painter's tape. At this point you may want to use a leveling tool to make sure that your stencil is level and not crooked. I can't tell you how aggravating it is to do all the work of getting a stencil on the wall and then take two steps back and notice that it's crooked and have to start all over.

Step 3:

Load up your putty knife with joint compound.


Step 4:

Lightly and carefully pull the putty knife across the stencil making sure to fill in all the blank spaces. Please don't make a thick layer, it's supposed to be subtle, remember?




Step 5: (do this as soon as step 4 is complete).

Carefully pull the stencil away from the wall.



Step 6:

Using a damp paper towel, gently wipe away any unwanted joint compound that is on the surface. If you are neater than I was and use a putty knife instead, you'll be able to skip this step.



Step 7:

Did you make a mistake and want to start over? No problem, Use a damp paper towel to wipe away the whole thing and start over. Easy!


Step 8:

Step back and marvel at your creation.

The picture below is above my cabinets and right below my ceiling. It is unfinished as of now:


What should you do with it once it's dry?



This is the fun part.

a. If you want a very subtle tone on tone look that will play well with lights and shadows, paint over the piece with the same color that is already painted on the walls or cabinets.

b. Want it to show up a bit more? Antique it with a glaze paint.

c. Want it to really stand out? Paint the work with a contrasting color to the walls or cabinet.

Once my kitchen renovation is complete, I'll be using a combination of both a and b. It will be tone on tone and then very lightly antiqued to make it stand out a bit more on the cabinetry.

Enjoy!

Green Day Sweater Vest

Yesterday I mentioned that I'm currently working on the Green Day Sweater Vest by Mari Muinonen. I'm still using the Paton's Classic Tweed Wool in Deep Olive that just didn't want to be the 1930s Sweater. I like it much better in this project.

Here's the progress so far:

I was worried that the flecks of color would detract from the cables, but I don't think that 's happening, do you? If you noticed that the left cable is different than the two right ones, it's because the panel in between the two cables on the left is the center front of the sweater. There are four large cables total on this vest, two right and two left.

There are two mods that I've made so far, only one of which was completely intentional. I added two stitches to the front to make a panel in the center of the sweater. That's the one that I meant to do. The second was on the baby cables at the bottom. I left out a row in the center of the baby cables, unintentionally, but decided that I liked it anyway and continued the mistake throughout the bottom of the vest. To make up for the lost rows, I added another baby cable repeat before starting the body of the sweater.

I had a difficult time figuring out the pattern instructions for doing this in the round. I've figured it out for the body so far, but who knows what will happen when I get to the straps. :)

A new project

It seems that today was a day for killing chickens, so to speak. My apology to those of you that actually have chickens. I'm not allowed to have real ones since I live in snob country. Evidently, anyone that owns livestock is considered riffraff around here.

Okay, back to chicken killing, or in other words, errands. School starts back in just two tiny little weeks. Yippee! Shhh, don't tell the kids I said that. But before school can start, supplies must be purchased and medical forms need to be signed off on, and garbage like that. So, I did at least get the form to the doctor. Then there was the dry cleaners, oh, and a birthday gift to be purchased. And last but not least, The Eldest and I got a wild hair and rearranged the living room. Whew!

Obviously, I haven't knit a thing today. But I did start a new project yesterday: The Green Day Sweater Vest by Mari Muinonen. I've seen some amazing things done with this pattern over on Ravelry. So in an effort to regain my knitting mojo, I decided to try it as well. I'm doing this sweater in the round. That way I can try the d*mn thing on to make sure it fits me as I go along. Kinda important in my book since knitting flat has failed me lately. I did get about 1.5 inches done yesterday. I'll hopefully find some time tonight to work on it.

Oh, and just for giggles, here's the Youngest showing his muscles at the beach last week:

Do you ever feel that you waste time while knitting? If you are a process knitter, the immediate answer is no. But a product knitter, like me? That would be an unequivocal, yes. Especially when things don't go as planned, like this past week, on my vacation. Maybe I've lost my knitting mojo. Perhaps my Knitter-fu has deserted me, I'm not sure.

I really wanted to make the 1930's sweater, but it just wasn't meant to be. It ended up being about 2 to 3 inches too short, and that's even with me adding two inches to the sweater above what the pattern called for. Then, to top it off, the arm holes were hellishly tight and uncomfortable once the sleeves were set in.

So. I had actually finished the sweater, but now it now looks like this:

Again.

Vacation was wonderful. We went to Port St. Joe, FL. This was exactly the kind of vacation that I had envisioned. We practically had our own private beach and pool the entire time. In the entire complex, we saw a sum total of twelve cars and a third of those were local residents.

The boys enjoyed the trip down:

Ring pops are great for trips!

Built a few sandcastles:

No one on the beach but us!

According to the Youngest, we saw a pirate ship:



I was accused of not being in any of the pics, so I might have made a really bad self portrait:

Please ignore the no makeup, beach hair and cheap sunglasses look! (No, I'm not vain, why do you ask?)

And we stayed in a super cute cottage:

Second from the right

On the whole, everything was great except the knitting. Can't wait to go back. Want to go NOW. I'm not the only one: The Youngest keeps asking to go back to the cottage, but it comes out as "I wanna go back to college!"

Vacation Logistics - Knittingwise

So we're off tomorrow for our beach vacation. We've rented a cute little cottage in Port St. Joe, FL. I have clothes, toys, metal detector, food, swim stuff. I even picked out a new knitting project, sort of.

I decided to make the 3 hour sweater. Let me make a few comments on this sweater:

1. There's no way in hell, unless you have the title of fastest knitter in the world, that you will be making this sweater in three measly little hours.
2. I looked up this sweater in Ravelry and most people chose to go with needle sizes 8 and 10. So I began this sweater with those needles. Check out the back portion of this sweater with me using those needles:

Hand included for size reference

I realize that this sweater stretches, but come on. I have to stretch it out to it's max to get it to fit across my back. Are the people on Ravelry who are making this size 0?
I can either add four more stitches to each section to get it a tiny bit roomier or go up another needle size, I'm not sure which. Either way the piece in the pic before you will be ripped out.

I'll be out next week, but hopefully will have some fun pics to show you and at least a partial sweater (I hope) when I get back!

The Honest Scrap Award

I got a blog award, Woohoo!

Angie, over at Home Grown, honored me with the Honest Scrap award.



This is how it works:

The Honest Scrap” award is not one to hold all to your self but it must be shared!

First, the recipient has to tell 10 true things about themselves in their blog that no one else knows.

Second, the recipient has to pass along this prestigious award to 10 more bloggers.

Third, Those 10 bloggers all have to be notified they have been given with this award.

Those 10 bloggers that receive this award should link back to the blog that awarded them “The Honest Scrap’ award.

So here goes:

1. I learned how to shear my dogs, one of which could put a sheep to shame with it's fur. Saved $75 on one dog and $45 on another. The shears have already paid for themselves.

2. I am a night owl, not a morning person. My brain doesn't begin fully functioning until around 6pm.

3. I've jumped on the Dave Ramsey debt reduction program. It will be a while 'til we are debt free.

4. I never paint my fingernails, just my toenails. It's too much trouble and I'm too rough on my hands for it to last anyway.

5. I like to blame mistakes on being blonde. It's very convenient.

6. I have aspirations to be an alpaca farmer one day.

7. We originally got the idea to raise alpaca way before I got into spinning and knitting which is kinda funny. We saw them on a late night infomercial and thought they were so cute. It started out as a joke between us and now it's gotten serious. Funny how that kind of thing works huh?

8. We own some rental homes. Our renters think we're rich, boy are they mistaken. We got the rentals when the mortgage companies were practically throwing mortgages at people. All the money has gone right back into the business, we haven't seen a penny yet. We consider it a very long term investment.

9. I dance! Tap, Jazz, Clogging - Just started following Belly Dance lessons off of Youtube, but there's no way I'll let anyone see me doing those lessons (the three year old doesn't count.)

10. Like Angie, I wish I got more comments on the blog, but doesn't everyone who has one? Except maybe the Yarn Harlot. She get's plenty. :) Does anyone ever tag her with these kind of awards?

Whew! Now to honor others with the Honest Scrap Award. Here are ten blogs that I enjoy immensely and I hope you'll enjoy them as well:

Bitten by Knittin'
Knitting on Impulse
Jeanne Knits
Jobo Designs
Knit Witch
Redshirt Knitting
Dabbled
Build/Make/Craft/Bake
Samurai Knitter
Dollar Store Crafts

You may consider yourselves tagged!

Museum Day

Today was fun! Me, my Sis-In-Law and the boys took a trip to the Fernbank Museum in downtown Atlanta today to see the Dinosaur exhibit. The Youngest was particularly impressed. He's in to all things dinosaur or dragon, take your pick. They seem to be interchangeable. According to him they all say "Yaw!"

I got some cute pics: (click to enlarge for extra cuteness)



This one really cracks me up. There was a science room in the museum that had a weather forecasting station. The kids could stand in front of a green screen just like a tv weatherman and see themselves on tv. The problem was, The Youngest was almost too short to be seen:

Look! A half-headed Weatherboy.

The kids are all worn out now. Funny thing is, today is their Dad's Bday. Lucky Dad gets to come home and deal with a three year old that missed his nap today!

Knitting Stuff:

I'm having a bit of a packing dilemma. Well, more knitting than packing really. Do I take the log cabin project since it's incredibly mindless, or do I pick something else that's not quite as mindless. If I picked the other, whatever it may be, will I really be able to concentrate while I'm on vacation? I can't decide. I don't want to take two projects since I won't have room, so I have to choose. :sigh:

Beach Countdown

The Countdown to the "Official Summer Beach Vacation" has begun.

Every single morning I am informed by the Youngest that "we're going to the beach today." Time means nothing to a three year old, he's been told over and over that we leave Saturday.

The boys and I went shopping for supplies today to get a head start on packing. My idea of supplies was sunscreen, bug repellant, nonperishable food items, you get the drift. Gee, I'm so glad that I took my personal beach consultants with me. You wouldn't believe how things have changed over the years. Evidently you now need so many new things for a trip to the beach - waterguns (Ironman and Spiderman of course), pool toys, swords (not sure why we need swords, that one escapes me), legos, movies, etc. Ahem. I might have given in over the water guns, but I spent the rest of the trip to the store saying,

"No."
"No."
"What did I just say? NO!"

Ah, the joys of motherhood and vacation planning. Why can't children see what's really important for a vacation trip? Like: yarn, needles, liquor, (repeat as necessary.)