Moving Issues and Sweaters

Yikes!  I just realized that I haven't mentioned yarn or knitting kinda stuff since October.  Wow.  Can you tell that I've had other stuff going on?  My interests are wide and varied and I seem to have the attention span of a flea lately. 

There is a reason that the attention span is so tiny right now.  Remember me telling you about the hubby losing his job?  Well, another has come along.  We're not thrilled about it, but we're going to have to take it.  He has sent out a bazillion resumes and nobody is calling for interviews.  I mean, Atlanta is a big place.  Isn't there somebody hiring around here?  So, the new job.  It's in Raleigh, NC.  He starts in December and will be there by himself for a good while. 

See, we've got numerous things that have to be done to our house before we can sell it, we have rental property to deal with and the kids are still in school.  The housing market still sucks so it looks like we'll end up losing money and then still not be able to get a loan for a new house in NC cause we won't have any cash to roll over into a new house.  Sucks huh?  On top of that, he's not going to be getting paid very much. 

At this point, we're not even sure that we'll be able to survive even with the new job because of the moving issues!  See, I told ya there was a lot on my mind right now!


However, this is a knitting blog and there should occasionally be knitting to look at right?  Here's where the sweater stands at the moment:

I have finished the front and back and I've begun the first sleeve.  I started that while on the school bus rides to and from the Ga Aquarium yesterday.  The kids were so funny about it too.  Is that hard?  Why are you doing that?  Do you take that everywhere you go?  They were so fascinated that someone would be knitting on the bus.

Chaperone for a day

I am now officially in need of a good stiff drink.  I chaperoned a field trip at the Eldest's school to the Georgia Aquarium.  While the aquarium is incredibly cool, chaperoning elementary children in a crowded venue is like herding cats.  It was fun though, don't get me wrong, just exhausting.  I got a few good pics to share with you though:

Love how the kids look like shadows here:

I love seeing the alligator like this:

 

 

The shark isn't very clear.  It was almost impossible to get a good shot of most of the exhibits.  You're not supposed to use a flash, so most of my pics weren't as nice as they could have been.  

One of these days I'll get around to showing you my knitting again, like tomorrow!

It's Elementary My Dear Watson

The Eldest portrayed Dr. Watson of Sherlock Holmes fame for a presentation at school on mysteries.  It was worth 40% of his grade.  He got a 105!  The costume got him the extra brownie points.  This was a costume that we put together a couple of years ago and he got to use it again.  The bowler hat, moustache and pipe all came from party city.  The coat is a jacket that belongs to his dad, but looks like a trench coat on him.

  Yay Eldest!

In Nanowrimo news, I've had to give it up.  Once again, family and sicknesses have derailed me.  I may try again at around 500 words a day instead of the 1667.  I was managing that amount just fine, but for some reason the 1667 just wasn't doable.  Maybe next year.

I Got Tagged!

Abby,over at BittenbyKnittin tagged me for an award! 

Here's the details (as stolen from Abby's blog cause I'm lazy):

The Neno’s Award Rules and Regulations:
1. As a dedication for those who love blogging and love to encourage friendships through blogging.
2. To seek the reasons why we all love blogging.
3. Put the award in one post as soon as you receive it.
4. Don’t forget to mention the person who gives you the award.
5. Answer the award’s question by writing the reason why you love blogging.
6. Tag and distribute the award to as many people as you like.
7. Don’t forget to notify the award receivers and put their links in your post.

Why do I blog?  I began this blog as a place to put my Knitting FO's.   It quickly morphed into a place to put stuff about my boys and then my weird spinning and diy projects.  It's kinda funny, but now I get more hits on diy stuff than what I started out doing.  I guess more people are into makin' and doin' their own stuff now that the economy has gone south.  I love that more people are branching out now and trying new things for their home and hobbies.  Maybe now I won't be the only "weird" one!

Now, it's my turn to tag! 

I'm going to tag Filth Wizardry.  This is a new blog that I've just discovered.  This woman puts me to shame on the stuff that she comes up with for her kids.  I'm especially in love with her hotdog/spaghetti supper that she came up with.  I am so doing this tonight with my kids.

What a Difference!

What a difference some hot glue and beaded trim makes!

Before on the left and After on the right:

Burlap Curtain Project Review:

1.  I did this on a bay window.  It would normally be very simple to do the hardware for the project, just have 3 straight curtain rods and 2 swivel socket connectors.  Put them together and install.  However, Ikea's connector was for a 90 degree angled wall and the angle for my bay windows was not.  Thus, the blow torch that I mentioned in an earlier post.  It would have been much simpler to use a swivel socket connector.  This carries on the tradition of my making every single project I touch much more difficult than it needs to be!

2.  My burlap panels are not going to be closed, they will stay as they are in the pic above.  So I cut the panel in half, approx. 24 inches wide.    If they were to be closed I would have left them at 48 inches wide, but that wasn't necessary for these windows.

3.  No sewing necessary!  I added 9 extra inches to my finished length.  1 inch to be turned under at the bottom for the hem and hot glued and 8 inches to be folded over in the front for a faux valance-y kinda look.  Obviously I do not know the formal name for this type of curtain.  Normally you would put the black part of the trim to the inside of the flap, but I wanted the black trim to echo the black bar above and the knobs on the cabinets.

4.  The panel is hung on the alligator clips attached to the rings.  So, you don't need to sew a pocket for the rod or put in grommets.  Grommets are not my friends.  They don't like me very much.

5.  For the bay window, I did 4 total panels of burlap, which was super cheap.  It was $2.99/yd and I had a 40% off coupon from JoAnn's.  The trim was purchased there as well.  I only used about two yards.  I got this on sale as well.  There are also 4 sheer panels that I found at Big Lots for $5.00 a piece.

Here's how I hung them up:  Panel, sheer, panel, sheer, sheer, panel, sheer, panel.  Or, one panel on each side and one in between each window.

6.  These go down to one inch above the floor.  I wanted a more dramatic look in the breakfast nook than shorter curtains would have given me.

So my breakfast nook is now complete:  (Please ignore studious boy doing homework)

I added new chair cushions and table cloth and it's finally done!  I love all the colors and textures in my kitchen now.

Computer Expert

This so needs to be sent to my Father In Law, I totally cracked up when I saw it.  He's forever having difficulty with computers and calling me and the hubby to fix it:

Have a great weekend!

Nano News

Welcome DragonMount readers!  It's nice to have you visit.  For those that don't know, DragonMount is the official site for Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.  My book review has been linked to the site and I'm just tickled about it.

In Nanowrimo news:

• I'm still chugging along and gradually making up the deficit in my word count. 
• I wrote myself into a wall with my story, mainly because of some of my secondary characters that need to be more prominent.
• I need help with dialogue.  Seriously, that is not my forte.  I can be descriptive, have great action scenes, but my characters are having a difficult time talking to each other.  I can only hope it gets better as I go along.

I've been using Google Docs to write my story, mainly because I can access it anywhere and because it has a word count.  The word count tool is nice, but I really wish they'd take the stupid readability index off of it.  I realize that this is a first draft and that it will need a crap load of revision, but how depressing is it when you've written something and then check your word count and find that the readability is around the fifth grade level, that the average eleven year old would be able to read it just fine?  

I did get all down about it.  I'm college educated, I should be writing better than this!  What a stupid thing to get all hung up on.  When this happened was around the time that I had written myself into a wall yesterday and that didn't help my sense of humor either.  I took a couple of hours to think about things and then tackled it again.  Story got back on pace and grade level went up.  Much better.

How's everybody else doing on their Nano novel?

Burlap Curtain Progress

The curtains are coming along.  I'm almost finished.  I still need to add the trim and then hot glue my hems down.  I refuse to sew the burlap.  I've already got a mountain of fuzz and lint from it in my dryer, I don't want it in my sewing machine as well.   It already needs a tune up, the last thing it needs is burlap abuse.  Here's how they look currently:

Look at how the sunlight shines through the burlap.  I love the texture it's bringing to the kitchen.  The burlap panels will never be moved.  Only the sheers will open and close.  The burlap is only there for color and texture.  I have a ton of the burlap left over.  I'm planning on using that to make a valance for the window over the sink.   If I get around to it, I'll put the trim on tomorrow and will give you a finished project pic then with details on how I did the whole thing.  This would be a piece of cake if it was just on a straight rod.  I'm already over the whole bay window thing, trust me.

Oh and yes, those are Halloween decorations in November.  Why do you ask?

On the writing front, I'm still about 800 words behind on my goal.  The night's not over yet of course.  I've written  over 1,000 words so far today and I'll have more time to write this evening.  I'm already doing better than I did last year, and I'm only three days into nanowrimo.  Cool!

The Cost of My Curtains

I am now officially a day behind on my nanowrimo challenge.  I had an unexpected guest to spend the night and forgot all about my writing until around 11pm.  I got 923 words out of 1667 written.  I now get to do my regular 1667 for the day plus the deficit from yesterday once the kids finally go to bed tonight.

In other news, I finally got all my curtain stuff straighted out.  Yeah! 

I got all the rods and clips at IKEA.  The rods were $6.99 each and I bought three.  However, I am only using two of them, so I will put the other one away for another window project later.

Here's the cool part about my curtain project.  I bought 10 yards of burlap at JoAnn's yesterday and used a 40% off coupon for it.  It was regular $2.99/yd.  Then, there was a sale for this really pretty beaded trim that normally went for $12.99/yd.  It was also 40% off.  Then, I used two gift cards that had been given to me for my *ahem* anniversary.  Wanna know what the total cost of my kitchen curtains (fabric and trim only) came out to be?

$9.44!  How cool is that?  Add the hardware and it comes to a total of $23.44 for everything!  I'm so excited about this.

At the moment it looks like this:

You wouldn't believe the trouble we've had with the corner connection pieces.  Let's just say that a blow torch was involved, okay?  Oh, and let us not forget to mention the pipe cutter that I learned to use today, very fun.

Here's the mess of clips I still have to deal with.

I'm going to add the clips and sheers tonight if I get a chance.  I will begin working on the burlap part tomorrow sometime.


For now, here's a pic of the Jack 'O Lantern that I carved out on Saturday:

Ooh, Scary!

Happy Halloween from Our House!

Happy Cold, Wet Halloween from Zorro and the Pirate!

Pirate Action Shot

Does this happen at anyone else's house?

There's a young boy child that's racing around the house, buck naked and holding his underwear in his little hands.  He's running and yelling "I'm naked!" as fast as he can while giggling maniacally.  Of course, his elder brother is mortified at this behavior and telling him to stop running around naked, which just encourages the little rascal more.  His father and I are just sitting here watching the show.  Does this happen to anyone else?

Book Review - The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan

I was devastated in 2007 when I heard of the death of one of my favorite authors, Robert Jordan.  He was a superb storyteller who created a work of fantasy that was unlike any other.  His death brought mild panic to my world.  It looked like The Wheel of Time books would have no ending, would leave us readers hanging off the cliff on a rope with no one to pull us up.

I was also aghast that Jordan's wife and manager would pick a relatively unknown author to pick up the storyline and continue it.  Who was this Brandon Sanderson anyway?  I decided to go read his previous works, looking for clues to how his writing style would stand up to Jordan's.  And ya know what?  I wasn't disappointed.  Elantris and his Mistborn series of books were fantastic.  Heavy in detail, magic and politics that for me, are the essentials in good fantasy stories.

Two days ago, The Gathering Storm arrived on my doorstep.  I've spent the majority of those two days reading.  I've neglected everything in my life shamelessly, devoting every second of my day to reading 800 pages.  I finished it, very late last night.  The verdict?

It was everything that I could have wished for in a Robert Jordan novel, and more.  Sanderson has managed to tie his and Jordan's writing together seamlessly.  It was an incredible read.

There are two main story arcs in this book, concentrating on Rand and Egwene.  Perrin and Matt are there briefly, but just barely.  The story line with Rand tends to be quite dark, and the character must deal with having incredible power and unbearable duty.  There's only so much that one person can bear in his lifetime and we get to see if Rand can hold it together long enough to make it to the final battle.  The story line dealing with Egwene however, is much more fun and enjoyable.  She's already fought her demons in previous books and now gets to act, trying to reunite the White Tower's various mule-headed and power hungry factions.

If you are into Perrin and Matt and Elaine, well, you're going to have to wait for the next couple of books.  Yes, there will be two more.  The amount of loose ends that Sanderson must tie up is staggering and will take a while to deal with.  In my opinon, Sanderson is handling that quite well.  Already a few of the questions that have been lying out there have already been answered and I look forward to finding out more.

I'll avoid going into more detail, I don't want to ruin the book for anyone out there that hasn't read it.  I will say this however.  If you have been worried about the 12th book in the series, don't be.  It's that good.

Not One Knit Stitch, but Lot's of Spinning

I took this past weekend off from knitting.  I didn't knit a single stitch.  Not one.    I did, however, do something I haven't done in months:  Spinning!

I have a pile of batts that I have put off and put off some more, mainly because when I did a test sample, the finished product felt like rope, not pretty fluffy yarn.  The culprit in the mix of fibers that's causing the problem is some Corriedale that I knew I shouldn't use and did it anyway.  I thought it would work if it was mixed with some alpaca and faux cashmere.  Nope, didn't work.  This stuff has been staring at me for MONTHS.  I became depressed and just couldn't look at it anymore.  I stored it away in some boxes in a corner under lots of other boxes just hoping that it would change it's mind and become more cooperative, but it didn't.

Until, that is, I had an epiphany on Saturday.  If it wasn't working in a three ply worsted, maybe it was because I had too much twist and it was way too small of a gauge.  So I broke out the spinning wheel  and approached the batts from a different point of view, after I caused an avalanche of boxes, naturally.

The collective "They" say that it's harder to learn to spin big, fat yarn after you have learned to consistently make thin plies of yarn.  Maybe I've been away from it long enough that wasn't an issue.  I did have a harder time keeping in slubs though.  I decided to try for a super bulky art yarn.  This is what I actually got:

More super bulky, less art yarn, but I like it anyway.  The yarn pictured above is approximately 390 yards worth.  I still have a bazillion batts to spin up, but it goes really quick like this.  I've been perusing Ravelry for sweaters that have this gauge yarn and I've found a couple that I might like.

So did spinning it at a larger and looser gauge work?  Yep.  It's much, much softer.  I'm going to keep it as a single ply too.  That way I'll get more yardage that I can work with and it won't lose that softness that I craved when I created these batts.

Happy Anniversary To Me!

Today's a big day around here.  It's the first anniversary of my 39th birthday!   Woohoo!

At this point in my life, I have decreed that there will be no further birthdays, just anniversaries.  I am stopping at 39.  I want my (eventual) obituary to read something like "Shea, passed away today.  She had just celebrated the 51st anniversary of her 39th birthday."

Yep, that's what it's going to say.  I plan on being in total denial for the rest of my life. And, barring something totally catastrophic, it could very well say that.  I have grandparents and other ancestors that lived well into their late 90's!  So, that means I haven't even hit the halfway point yet.  That deserves a big Woohoo! in my book.  :)

Just wait until you see what my boys picked out for me for my birt  anniversary!  We have a tradition around here of letting the boys pick out the gifts for people.  It's way more entertaining that way.  One year, for mother's day, the Eldest picked out these plates that had a summer Hawaiian theme.  He gave me a hint that he had gotten me some "Mexican eatin' thingies."  It's been an endless source of amusement for my mother.

Today's gift was just about as good.  I got a six pack of Snickers candy bars and these lovely skull and cross bone orange-black-gray argyle slippers:

I've been wearing them over my green Wicked socks that my Sis In Law gave me for my "anniversary".  She's in denial too.  She just celebrated the same "anniversary" as me, just 25 days sooner, which makes her older than me.  Ha!

But don't they look lovely together?

Edited to add:  When I wrote this earlier today, in my little obit section I put 49th instead of 39th.  Gee, senility sets in early when you hit the big 39 + 1, doesn't it?

Out of the Mouths of Babes

 You all know that my Youngest is incredibly unpredictable and wild, right?  I mean, remember THE picture?

Well, he pulled another one on me and embarrassed me to death at WalMart.  Here's how it went down:

The Scene:  Youngest is riding inside the shopping cart while looking through the cart with both little hands up on either side of the front of the cart.   A woman is squatting down and restocking the shelves.  The whole right side of the aisle is open and there's plenty of room for us to get by.

I stopped the cart just in front of her, just so that I could look at what was on the shelves to the right of us.  Okay, if i have to confess, I was in the shoe department.  Okay?  Anyway.

Now you all know the voice from the old wild western movies where the bad guy says "This town ain't big enough for the two us."  That mean, low, gravelly voice right?

Youngest:  Says loudly (In the meanest, lowest, gravelly-est voice possible) "Get out of our way." 

Thank God she started laughing.   I was mortified and made him apologize asap.  There's just no way any mom can control what comes out of their child's mouth nor when it will happen.  Ack.

It doesn't come across as funny when written down, but trust me, it was HILARIOUSLY EMBARRASSING.

 ******

The curtain project didn't happen.  There was a problem getting the hardware that I need, so I'm going to have to order it online.  bummer.

I did, however, knit up about two more inches on Ye Olde Sweater Project though.  I'm at the point where I begin increasing from the waist shaping that I added to the pattern, so that will at least add a few stitches of excitement to the otherwise boring part of the sweater.

Have a great weekend!

Curtain Talk

I'm tackling the windows of my kitchen this week.  This is a tough one for several reasons:

A.  I'm not good with curtains.  I have a difficult time envisioning treatments on windows and when I think about an idea for them, I usually think "that's totally going to suck" and never do them.  The exception being the roman shades in the boys' room.  I love those.

B.  It has to be dirt cheap.  Cause we're broke.  Have you priced curtains lately?  I know I'm going to have to make them myself.

I think I've found a great fabric that is cheap and will bring in texture and has a color that will fit in brilliantly with my kitchen:  Burlap!  I found a few examples on line that I really like and will be super easy to make.  The most expensive part will be the bay window curtain rod.

Here's one example that I particularly love:

  You can see the whole writeup on this over at the Living My Life Outside the Box blog.  She did such a fabulous job with this!

I also want white sheers to go in between the burlap panels that can be closed when the sun gets too hot.  I also want them to be almost floor length. 

I'm off to the store with all my window measurements!

Knitting Project Progress Report and a Cable Trick

The Boatneck Cable Thingymagig Sweater is progressing nicely.  This is despite the fact that I haven't knit a stitch in about three days.  I did the majority of my knitting this weekend during Auburn's embarrassing loss to Kentucky on Saturday evening. The rest of my  time has been spent making more Sterling Silver jewelry or I've been helping the Eldest deal with homework and a huge project that is due on Friday. 

This evening doesn't look to good for knitting either since I'll be gone to choir practice until 9 or 9:30.  So we'll see how tomorrow looks on the knitting front instead.

I have gotten past the fun cable part to the place in the pattern where you have to knit eleventy billion stitches, or until the piece measures 13.5".  Something like that anyway.  Then the monotony will continue - it'll just switch from plain stockinette to ribbing. 

I did figure out another cable trick while working on this though!  I mentioned one cabling trick before when dealing with a cable where you go from either a knit to a purl stitch or purl to knit stitch.  But, what about when you go from a knit stitch to a knit stitch when coming out of the cable?   

It's so simple:  On the last stitch of the cable, right before the next knit stitch, twist the stitch.  That's it!  It tightens up the loose baggy stitch very well.

Hope that helps someone!

Nanowrimo '09

NaNoWriMo 2009 is upon us.  For those not in the know, National Novel Writing Month begins on November 1.  The goal is to generate a 50,000 word novel.  Basically 1,666 ish words a day.  Last year I might have gotten 1,666 words total.  I failed miserably thanks to life interruptions.  Once I got a little bit behind, I felt overwhelmed at how many words that had to be done to catch up on my number, and then promptly quit.

I'm going to try again though.  If I can manage to blog four to five days a week, then perhaps I can manage to sit at my desk and write a damn story, right?  So I've signed up again, but this time I'm seeking writing buddies to keep me honest.  I've added one, Hi Angie!, and I'm seeking others.   If you're up for it, go sign up at the NaNoWriMo site and look me up.  I'm sjmercure there (and just about everywhere else except for on craftster.  I'm henri there.)

In the past when I've been writing, I've hit brick walls in several ways.  One of those is by coming up with a cool character and then not being able to come up with a story.  Another way is by outlining a story and then being too bored with it by the time the outline was done and then didn't bother to finish it.  Or, I started a story and couldn't find a good middle and end.  Plot?  What plot?  :sigh:

Two good sites that I'm going to be mining for info this year:

1.  HollyLisle.com - This is just full of great writing info. that covers just about every aspect of writing.
2.  The Snowflake Method of writing. - Great way of breaking the writing process down to it's component parts.

Oh, another issue?  Reading about how to write a novel, researching how to write a novel and then never doing it because I'm still reading and researching.  In other words, procrastination.  I'm really good at that.

Rampant Sticky Fingers

I worked at my son's school book fair this morning.  While I was there, we found that the popular book, Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Dog Days, had over 14 copies missing.  The librarian was so upset.  The school has to eat the costs of the missing stuff.

It turns out that 10 of those copies had been "stashed" by some of the kids behind other books, displays and carts so that they could come back and buy them later.  Whew.  But, that meant that four others walked off in some kid's sticky fingers.   Another item, worth about $14 dollars had also been stolen.  If this kind of stuff continues, the school will end up paying to have a book fair.  These are supposed to be fund raisers!

Two books were stolen off of some kids' desks as well.  Small thieves seem to be running rampant in the school.  And this is not some low income inner city school either, it's one of the top in the nation. How sad that these kids feel like they have to steal it. 

Maybe it was the "buzz" about the book that has caused all the problems, I'm not sure.  Every single one of the children want a copy of it though, including my kid. 

I have never seen this kind of thing happen to this degree though.  One or two things missing, yes, this kind of stuff though?   It's very sad.

New Knitting Project

I started a new knitting project.  This one is the Cotton Classic Boatneck Pullover.  You can see it and some other free patterns: Here.

Except, it's not going to be in cotton, it'll be in wool. A lovely yarn from Hobby Lobby that is in Seal Brown.  It's the most gorgeous cross between deep brown and plum.  It sounds odd, but it will be very elegant when it's all worked up.

This is the project that I've been meaning to tell you about for several days, but other stuff just kept coming up.  I'm not sure if I will need to put in some waste shaping yet or not.  I haven't gotten far enough into the pattern to see.  I'm not one to really read ahead in a pattern the way I should, so we'll see in a week or so.