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.