Fluffy Clouds and Crochet Hooks

Retirement, again

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 22:54:00 -0500

The past couple months have been torturous for me. My life has been falling apart, I haven't thought about picking up needles or hooks in the longest time, and quite frankly I just don't have the time or emotional energy to keep up the blog. I thank everyone for their interest in my blog, for the kind comments I've received over the past couple years. But this is something I need to put in the past, and spend more time living my present and planning for my future.

Goodbye & Good Luck to you all!

**Shannon**

Back on Track

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 02:28:00 -0500

While I hesitate to say that my personal crisis is over, I will say that it has subsided enough that I'm confident of my place in the world again. It has been a draining few weeks, so much so that I haven't accomplished a thing having to do with fiber or crafting in quite a while. Not a single stitch knit in longer than I can remember. But I have had a chance to work on a collaborative podcasting endeavor I've been invited to join... now if I can get a mic when my paycheck hits the bank, I can record it. The mic headset I just bought in November or December is making me sound like I'm talking into a tin can - I must have dropped it one too many times.

What I have been contemplating lately is my vacation to Disney World coming up in March. Dh & I are planning our first ever getaway - we didn't even take a honeymoon. We're leaving the kids with my parents and fly out on Saturday, flying back the following Sunday. We think. The small problem of not having the money to schedule the trip ahead of time is sort of putting the whole thing on a hit-or-miss schedule. We get our bonus from work on Feb 28th, and then we can put down the deposits on everything. Since we're planning to return in a few years when the girls are old enough to keep up and remember the experience, it won't be a big deal if we have to forego some of the sights due to our late planning. I'm busy reading up on sites that offer tips. My co-worker Joe just got back from a trip he took their with his wife last month and he's full of information. I haven't been to DW since 1987 when I was 10, dh has never been there. Dh is already asking me what knitting project I'll be bringing with me.

Beginnings & Endings

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Mon, 2 Jan 2006 20:54:00 -0500

I was reminded by a post by Theresa on Keyboard Biologist to be so thankful for everyone we have in our lives that make things so much better. She's going thru what I imagine is a personal crisis right now and mentioned how wonderful her family has pulled together to help her thru it. My life is taking somewhat of a destructive turn for the worse, and like her, I'm not going to air all my laundry here, but wanted to chime in and mention how while blogging and journaling can be freeing and theraputic as well as fun, it's also a place where you need to draw the line. There is a time when you have to hold back what's really in your heart or going on in your life, no matter how much you wish you could just get it off your chest. I learned that lesson the hard way when I began talking about a job at one point. This is something more personal. Ironically, it is going to involve digging out journals dated with the year 1996! And how much similarity there is with the upheaval in my life these past 3 weeks and the months of it I endured over the same type of situation back then. Learn history or repeat it... I hope I don't have to repeat the whole saga, this time on the losing end.

Happy New Year!

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Sun, 1 Jan 2006 01:21:00 -0500

It's 1:22am, I'm still awake, and have to get up at 5:30 to go to work (please, people everywhere, don't call to complain about your bills today! Give those of us who have to answer the phones a break!) I worked on a crocheted shawl, and just realized that I screwed up the pattern, which is why I'm running out of yarn and still have a long way to go. The good news is that it's about 3/4 done - I just may need to go buy a 3rd ball of yarn to finish it. I was inspired by this pattern, but I was only decreasing at the end of each row, not the beginning & ending. My bad. I also finished the first ball of Foliage for my scarf, and can't decide what to do next - if I should try to block it either longer or wider, and leave it with the current 1 ball of yarn, or if I should make it a 1 1/2 - 2 ball scarf, or if I should try to make a hat and if there is leftover yarn add it to the scarf. Decisions! I'm just waiting for Wednesday to roll around. I need to get more knitting done, since I seem to be in a groove right now. Wednesday is my next day off. The good news is that today starts a new year at work, and I don't need to be on 100% panic alert about every little thing... I've got a bit of a buffer. My horoscope said that I should plan big with my new year's resolutions... I haven't made any in years. I'm going to give it some thought. How about you?

Time Flies

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 10:41:00 -0500

I have no idea where my weekend went. And I got to sleep in today because I switched shifts with someone and don't have to be to work until 12:30. I did run to the yarn shop on Wednesday and bought one of the lantern moon rice baskets and some yarn to make myself a wrap and scarf. Later that night I went out and got some Red Heart, too. Before anyone starts frowning on me, let me explain. I found a pattern in the Knitter's Magazine that I bought a few years ago when I heard about the More Than a Sweatshirt pattern that was being done as a knitalong on the ample knitters group. That pattern isn't the one intriguing me right now - it's one called Ridged Raglan, and it's done with Berella 4, a 100% acrylic yarn that I'm not sure even Michaels carries anymore. I could have paid a fortune for Encore at the yarn shop, if I wanted higher end acrylic, but I'd just as soon pay $1.57 for 7 oz of Red Heart and not feel guilty about it. The picture in the mag is done with winter white and muted green, blue, purple and burgundy, I think... I decided to use light fushia as the main color with pale, med & dark purple and a variegated as the accents. The sweater is worked in sections that have mitered corners at the underarm, so I started with stitches that go up the seem from the side hip seem to the wrist seem. This is the back right side of the sweater. The genius of the pattern is that the seaming is done with a 3 needle bind off, so there's no sewing. I wish they had the pullover version for women, like they do for the kids, but I'm not in the mood to fudge something like that, so I'm going to make the cardigan version. The scarf I'm working on for myself is made from Berroco Foliage, in color 5930, which is navy, green, purple, turquoise and black. The yarn I bought to make myself a little wrap is Filatura Di Crosa Multicolor, in color 4053, which is mainly burgundy with other shades blended in. That capelet or shawl will probably done in crochet, just so that it gets done this winter so that I can wear it.

Burning a Hole

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 21:42:00 -0500

Yes, the yarn store gift certificate and cash I got from my family for Christmas will be flying out of my purse tomorrow as soon as I can get to the yarn store. I am excited - it is not often that money I spend on yarn is not taking away from something that it is really meant for - ie. bills. Now the question will be what do I buy with it? I've been eyeing the drawstring rice baskets from Lantern Moon - those are about $36, if I remember correctly. I can still get a decent amount of yarn if I bought one of those. I've thought about getting another set of Denise needles, but really, how many projects do I want to be able to start - I already have about 100 sets of straight and circular needles - if I was desperate, I could use those. It's sort of like getting a 2nd puzzle mat - I'd like to start a new puzzle I got,but I'm forcing myself to finish the first one and only have one going at a time.

As far as yarn goes, I'd love to work on something small and simple, and preferably for myself. Unless I found a pattern I loved and yarn I could afford to make myself a sweater - it would be a first - I've never completed a sweater for myself. In a bulky yarn I might actually be able to accomplish it. Actually, I really wanted to make myself the More Than a Sweatshirt from Knitter's Magazine for a few years now, so maybe I can look for something that I could use for that, and then the basket would hold the project. I also want to finish a scarf for me and another for dh. His I've got going on size 15 needles and double stranded wool with a mock rib pattern, mine ... I don't even know if mine is still on the needles, I'm so frustrated with it. I'll probably rip out what I've already done, then go double stranded and crochet something with the cool alpaca that I'm going to destroy by frogging it. But at this rate, it'll never get done! And I'm coming to the conclusion that simple & bulky but done is better than a complicated UFO that never sees the light of day.

Episode 3 of Unraveled is coming, I swear! I'm finally 95% over my cough! You'd think that with all this time between episodes I'd have a lot of material set aside, but I haven't really done squat with anything except work, sleep & the holidays lately.

Happy Holidays

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 20:27:00 -0500

The holidays always seem to be the longest & shortest parts of the year. It's a chaotic mess of weather, driving, and shopping, which seems to go on forever. And then, around Dec 27th, I'm at the mall still waiting for the wonderful event... Wait - Christmas is over? How did I miss it? I suppose better planning would help me feel more relaxed around the holidays, but the one year I power shopped and got everything bought way ahead of time, it felt like I skipped the hustle and bustle part that I enjoyed. Well, that was before I had kids and lived, worked and shopped 20 miles in different directions! And since we have multiple families to celebrate the holidays with, and I have to work both Christmas Eve & Christmas Day, we're actually doing our christmas with my kids tomorrow after work. Then, hopefully, I can at least see them open the gifts from me and my parents. I spent Tuesday night programming "Know Your Name Elmo" so that he says "Courtney" every other sentence, and intermittently mentions the people, animals, colors and foods she likes. The damn toy is for my 20 month old and has a USB port - What is the world coming to??? Johanna is getting a Dora discman and a Chicken Little Cd & book. Hopefully we can find more books on cd for her, and I doubt dh's family took the suggestion and got her some. We tossed around the idea of getting her a mini dvd player, but she watches so much tv that I just didn't want to encourage her spending even more time watching movies. Maybe when we get our tax refund we can get her Hooked on Phonics, if they've come out with a cd version - the BJs & Sams near us only carry the cassette versions and we don't have a tape player for her.

The past few days I've been working on my Gauntlets from the cover of Not Just Socks by Sandi Rosner. I'm using yarn I got from Knitpicks.com, Simple Stripes in the Sweet Tart colorway. What I love about the pattern is that it makes the striping yarn look as if it's actually some sort of entrelac or modular knitting, but it's just the stitch pattern's wavy-ness. Although the stitch pattern is very simple, I find it takes some amount of concentration, and working k2tog with size 2 needles and fingering yarn is somewhat of a pain. I sort of wish that I'd used the plum parade yarn which is sport weight and would have worked up quicker, but on the other hand, this light weight yarn will still be good for these gauntlets although the stitch pattern is a little airy and I'm not using as small of needles as I would if this were a sock project - this yarn would probably require size 0's for socks (it reminds me of the Opal socks I made myself a couple birthdays ago - very thin yarn), but I'm using size 2's. I just hope to have them finished before the cold weather is over.

A few weeks ago I bought Mindy, a girl I work with, some yarn & needles and cast on her first sock project. It's actually her first knitting project period. Well, she hasn't gotten anywhere with it, primarily because I spent about 6 mins with her on a break trying to show her knit & purl. The good news I got today is that we seem to be working the same shift starting at the end of January, so I will hopefully have a knitting buddy on my team. Dh thought I would be upset, he got the same hours as me, 7:15-4:15, but he's off Mon/Tues and I'm off Thurs/Fri. While it's not exactly what I wanted, which would have been both of us off the same days, we're getting 1/2 of what we were looking for - we'll be able to drive together Wed, Sat & Sun, we're both working day shift so we'll have nights together, and my mom will have one of us home 4 days during the week. It sucks that we both have to work weekends, but this will hopefully only last until april, and then we're going to try again for the same shift. Alan keeps focusing on getting thru to our vacation in March/April. We really need that break and the time to spend together. Dh asked what knitting projects I'll be bringing along. :)

Long Week

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 05:56:00 -0500

This has been the longest week of my life. It actually started taking the turn last Sunday when I started feeling sick, continued all week while I was so incredibly ill and without any sick days to take. And when you're sick and have no energy, every little thing seems like a big deal. This Sunday, still being sick and having gotten little sleep because I was christmas shopping until 11pm the night before, I ran out of patience with my kids at 7pm and had to call dh to take care of them until bedtime because I just couldn't. Today is my friday, and nothing could be better news. Except that dh swapped schedules with one of our co-workers so that we're working the same day shift instead of him working nights. We'll actually be able to do "Christmas Morning" with my kids on friday night when we get home from work. Saturday & Sunday I have to work and then go straight to the festivities at my brother's house one night and my in-laws the other, so we wouldn't have a chance to spend time with the kids for them to open their gifts with us. I love the holidays, but I rarely get to enjoy them with all the hustling from one place to another. Tonight we're going to get the wrapping done, I have a few more gifts to buy, but I'm trying to get everything done by Thursday.

Last night I got my 2nd gumball sock finished. I just need to weave in ends in both socks and then I can wear them. I started my swirl Sweet Tart gauntlets. I'm convinced that these are a great idea since my wrists and arms are so cold most of the time at work & home. I also discovered SuDoku puzzles and bought a book of them as a christmas gift for myself, so I've been working on those at work on my breaks and before bed. They are addictive. I first tried them at shockwave.com.

Podcast 3 will be recorded this week, if all goes well. My voice is mostly back and if I stop to blow my nose every 10 minutes I shouldn't sound too stuffy.

Down & Out

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 20:37:00 -0500

Well, I've gotten another bad cold. I swear, they give my kids flu shots and I get sick every time. I lost my voice today and customers were telling me I was breaking up - it was like I had built-in static. I'm about to get a good night's sleep I hope. I got my new phone today. It's red. The important thing is that I got a pink Bluetooth headset, and !Shocking! it seems to stay on my ear unlike every other earpiece I've ever tried! I started Mindy's sock for her today on our break, hopefully I'll get her to master knit & purl by tomorrow afternoon so she can go with it on our weekend. I've come to the conclusion that I'm not going to have enough yarn to finish my spa cloth that I'm doing with orange cotton yarn. I'm starting to think I'll do narrow rainbow stripes on the one corner to liven it up. A design element, if you will. I don't feel the need to invest in another ball of bright orange yarn! Last night I also went and got "Podcasting" from B&N along with a knitting magazine and a book of origami for a christmas gift for myself from my husband. I obviously won't be recording episode 3 until my voice is back.

Sigh!

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 03:31:00 -0500

Well, it looks like I've made more podcasting progress in the past 8 hours than in the past few weeks. I got my RSS feed going, I think. And I figured out how to use iTunes as an aggregator so I've been subscribing to all the casts I've been listening to and updating my iPod. Next on the list is getting a new mic.

After checking in on cast-on.com and reading that Brenda was charged for MB usage because we used up too much bandwidth listening to her, I made a hasty trip to my host's new website (which, ironically, just changed hands and names this week) and tried to find out where my bandwidth limit was. I knew I had one, I just had never come near using it all. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that I'm only using a tiny <1% of what I'm allowed. Unless I have some unprecedented increase in demand, this should be fine for now. I can't find anywhere what the overage rate is, but I'm betting it's not cheap.

A big thanks to Caroline at FiberCast for pointing me in the direction of Feedburner. That was the easiest part of this whole production so far!

Incognito

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 04:54:00 -0500

The problem with the internet and blogging is that while you want people everywhere to read and agree with you, you don't want some people to find them either. It's sort of like hiding contraband under your mattress as a teenager. Like that's not the first place your parents are going to look. My point was proven this week when I got a comment from a possible co-worker, and dh came home with the address of a friend/former supervisor's blog to check out. You try to be as public as possible without disclosing too much. I found out the hard way a couple years ago to try to keep work out of the picture as much as possible. Even though I never gave my last name, the last names of any of the people I mentioned, or the name of the company I worked for, knowing that I needed to keep myself anonymous if I was going to gripe about work, I let a friend who was not so blog savy put some posts about her job on my blog and she *did* use last names, and next thing I know I'm being walked into HR to be fired, no questions asked. So why does work keep slipping into my Fluffy Cloud world? Because it's about 1/2 of my life! More, actually, since dh & I both work there and talk about work even when we're not there. Case in point, I've been up since 3:30 this morning, talking to dh about these darn schedule bids. I've come to the conclusion that the whole mess was designed to keep us from having any damn clue what it is we're asking for, therefore leaving us unable to dispute whichever schedule they end up giving us. It took me 2 1/2 hours to rank them all! And this process is supposed to be easier than going to us and asking what schedule we want... that's the funny part. Anyway, work has been eating up a lot of my life with it's grief lately. I got written up for not using my sick days and coming into work late, so now I am facing a brick wall for 6 months where I can't be late or call in without being put on a 9 month final warning. I'm not giving anyone the satisfaction of being fired or quitting over this. I just got a promotion and I refuse to let them push me out over something as dumb as being 5 mins and 15 seconds late to work. I think I got about 1 row done on my spa cloth yesterday. I still haven't finished the heel on my second gumball sock. It'll probably sit there for ages before I get back to it even though I know I could have it done and wearable in 30 minutes. What's holding me back? The gaps at the corners of the heel where I pick up stitches. It looks sloppy and I hate it. The first sock was bad, too, so I know I need to darn these closed somehow and work on some technique to use on future pairs. But that is the only drawback I've found to the afterthought heel method.

In regards to the podcasting... I got some great hints, mainly that I needed to get a podcasting book. Unfortunately, I don't get paid until the 15th, so you'll have to stay tuned until then for me to get the RSS feed going. But I promise that better stuff is coming.

Don't ya hate spam?

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Thu, 8 Dec 2005 23:57:00 -0500

I don't know what's up lately, but I've been getting the oddest spam postings on my blogs lately. Today's insanity "ahhh, no one has commented on this post because God does not want you to deride his true church. By the way, True believers also believe in naturalism and not wearing any clothes at all...so god argument, sinner." I can do nothing but laugh, shake my head and hit delete.
My new phone order was finally processed - I ordered it last Saturday morning, it was just processed before noon today, I probably won't get it until next monday or tuesday. I really can't wait. I love new electronic toys. This phone has an MP3 player, broadband video, plus I got the pink Bluetooth ear piece (another thing to keep charged! As if the ipod & phone weren't enough!) But, hey, maybe if I don't have to have some stupid wire connecting my ear to my phone, I'll be able to use the phone more. I honestly use my phone less than 100 minutes a month. Probably has something to do with the fact that I talk 8 hours a day, 5 days a week at work. Jamie & I talked one night for 3 hours - I'm surprised the phone didn't burst into flames from the shock of it. The key to getting the Bluetooth earpiece was getting it pink so that dh didn't absorb it into his collection of stuff. If he wants one, he's going to have to get his own. We both still need memory cards for our phones, and of course they aren't even the same kind so we do need to buy 2 different ones. If they were the same, I'd probably try it in mine, decide I didn't really need it and give it to him.

Tomorrow is Silly Hat Day at school for Johanna. I made her a truly hideous Fun Fur & Woolease nightmare! It's a red wool ease, rolled brim, stockinette stitch cap that starts with red funfur, then goes to medium blue (still red wool ease yarn), then went back to red & red, with an icord tassle complete with a pompom at the end. I bet it will be warm, too. But honestly, it's absolutely grotesque. Kids love anything furry or shiny, so I'm hoping she likes it when she sees it tomorrow. Hey, if nothing else, it's something handmade with love. And it knit up fast enough for me to say that I could honestly knit her a presentable version in a few more hours.

The gumball socks are literally 1 heel away from being finished. They are on the back burner this week, as I really need to get the spa cloths done. Christmas will be here in no time. Tonight I spent an hour writing my kids names & date on the back of about 60 wallet pictures to sent out in my mom's Christmas Cards. I needed to pick shorter names! Johanna & Courtney is very long... if Jo had continued calling herself Jo Jo and we'd continued calling Courtney CJ, it would have been much easier, but we actually call Courtney "Courtney Jayne" and Johanna calls herself "Johanna" so I guess those names are sticking until they hit first grade and start to pick up nicknames. I'm sort of surprised that Johanna is called by her correct name - they don't mispronounce it or shorten it. I suppose that she's got a lot of years ahead of correcting people, but right now it's not bothering her, or maybe she doesn't even notice when people call her Jo Hannah or Jo Hana. For the most part, once we tell people her name is "Joanna" they don't pay attention to the silent h. What we think is really funny is that Jo prounounces it "Jew-Anna" like my great grandfather who was from Italy would call my grandmother Johann (Jew-Ann) with his accent.

Fortuitous Timing

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Sun, 4 Dec 2005 23:15:00 -0500

Tonight was the midnight madness sale at AC Moore, and of course I took the opportunity to ask Mindy if she wanted me to pick up some sock yarn and needles for her with my 25% off coupon. She jumped at the chance, which was cool - it gave me an excuse to go buy knitting stuff! With someone else's money! What could be better? She warned me that she likes dark, boring colors, like Black. Ok... I thought we were going to get along here, but I can see that we just parted ways on color choices - I like bright, outrageous stuff, she's more conservative. I got Magic Stripes, not one of my favorite sock yarns, but the price was right and she wanted something self striping. I picked up one ball of yarn and a set of size 2 dpns for $7! What a deal.

I came home and worked on my sock, which is now missing a heel and about 2 rounds at the toe before I graft it closed. I can't believe how fast those socks worked up! Now, I might have been thinking about the Crayon colorway next, but a miraculous thing happened tonight: I found my cheat cards for the Weeping Willow shawl! I have these little micro flashcards on a binder ring that I had written down the pattern repeats on, one row per card, and as I finished each row I turned to the next card. Well, the pattern went in one direction, the yarn in another, and these flashcards in a third. I had been stalled on the project because I couldn't figure out where the heck I'd left off. I really want to work on that project. Maybe on my weekend, Wed & Thurs. I also need to start working on the spa facecloths again. Work has been incredibly busy, so I haven't had a chance to work on them there. I just really want to get 1 set done for my one aunt. I think I can handle that during the next few weeks.

Tomorrow is my daughter's "wear your pj's to school" day. Friday is wear a funny hat day, so I'm going to dig thru my enormous stash of fun fur and make her the fuzziest hat I can come up with!

I can almost taste it...

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Thu, 1 Dec 2005 23:34:00 -0500

Completion, that is. Gumball sock #2 is now beyond the heel stitches put on waste yarn, meaning that I'm in the home stretch! I think I have about 6 stripes until I begin the toe decreases. These will definitely be done by the end of this weekend. I'm also into the decrease half of the first spa facecloth, which is from a pattern found in Knit It!, not Easy Knitting as I'd mentioned in one of my Unraveled episodes.

This morning I went to my storage unit to pull out yarn for my aunt. My mom's sister Debbie passed away in August from Pancreatic Cancer at the age of 52. My other aunt, the baby of 4 children, asked if I had yarn I'd like to donate to her to make lapghans for the cancer center. Taking acrylic yarn off my hands - no problem at all. The question was what to give her first. I ended up giving her the chunky red heart and Chunky USA. I also pulled out a small bag of sock yarns for me. :) As if I needed more today, right?

Wednesday I went to Joann's and got a "basket" made of metal and with the look of a school locker - vents on one side like on the top of my Jr High locker. It's bright pink. It's going to be my desktop yarn bin for work. I already tossed in 3 socks in progress (Blues, Crayons, and Gumball) and the cotton for my spa facecloths. Now that the weather is getting crappy around here, I'll most likely stay inside for my breaks & lunches and veg at my desk with my ipod & yarn.

I can't believe it's December already! We're bidding on schedules this week that will be in effect for Jan-March. Usually, they are 6 months at a time, but I guess this time we're going just 3 months. I think they're getting desperate and are just trying a lot of different things to see if any of them work. The big problem for us is that dh & I both work there and are close in seniority, which is how the bids are ranked, but there are almost as many different schedules as there are people, so trying to either get the same days off or the same start/end times is almost impossible. It went fom about 35 for July-Dec, this time is 482 choices! To put into numerical order from most to leasrom t favorable. I guess I really wouldn't care so much except that dh & I really need to carpool, and would like to have at least 1 day off together. It's going to be better no matter what because we'll both be working days, giving us time to spend together with the kids every night no matter what. For the past 5 months, I've been working days and have the kids every night, dh works nights but has weekends off, so really the only time we see each other is Sat/Sun nights after I get home from work. People at work make comments about how great that must be for our marriage, figuring that if we don't see each other we must not fight, but we are just the opposite, when we are together the most is when we get along the best. We started out as friends and I still consider him my best friend, so when we don't see each other for 3 days at a time it gets frustrating.

Oh, and as a side note, I was listening to talk radio on the way to pick up my car from my brother's today and heard that The Medley Centre has banned card games & chess playing in the food court. Love it! It's about damn time they decided to play fair and keep the older loiterers out of the mall. Even though I'm well out of my teen years, it still ticks me off that the security guards and mall managers chase out the teens who are more likely wasting all their money in the mall, yet let the "free refill" coffee crowd hang out all they want. I remember when the mall first opened and I'd go there on weekends with my friends, my mom would make sure I had at least $5 in my pocket so that I wouldn't get in trouble for loitering. The Walden Galleria mall in Buffalo has a 'no teenager without an adult' rule in effect on weekends that I think is a spectacular idea and hope that the Medley Centre folks start something similar.

Socks Galore

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 21:55:00 -0500

Well, the sock addiction is still in full swing here. I worked on the mate to my Gumball sock that I finished last week. We were on the thruway heading to Niagara Falls this afternoon when it was really crappy out, rainy and miserable. I'd struggled to pick driving projects, but settled on the grey wool scarf (Dh gave me a deadline of Thursday for that to be done - HA! Obviously the man has no idea how long 6 feet of boring 3x3 ribbing with size 7 needles and worsted yarn will take me!) and the gumball sock. Now, the 2nd sock in a striped pair always seems to go quicker for me because I can literally pull out the amount of sock yarn needed to get to a certain point, then just work until I run out of loose yarn. Case in point, I pulled out the 5 stripes worth of yarn that needed to be ribbed. These are going to be identical (instead of fraternal) socks, so rather than measure with a tape, I will just compare the 2 socks as I go and use the first sock as my guide.

Since I do have so many started socks using this Parade yarn from Knitpicks.com, I'm running out of size 2 dpns! I'm actually using the bryspun ones I hate on the gumball pair because I was so anxious to get the pair done.

One of the girls at work saw my finished sock (we were in a training the week before while I was working on it and she doubted my ability to turn what I was working on into a real sock.) She said that she wants me to teach her to knit socks. I told her that it might be a good idea to start with something simpler, like a scarf, rather than 4 dpns and fingering or even sport weight yarn. She said that she's only interested in socks - she likes the idea of her feet being warm. Well, ok, I guess. She has me to help her, so it shouldn't be a complete disaster, but I remember my first sock and how concerned I was about the gaps between the needles, etc. I think I also went thru 2 sets of Brittany #1 needles because they lost all rigidity and strength (sort of like a toothpick if you suck on it for any amount of time will get limp). Unfortunately, she & I don't have the same lunch time, but possibly when we start our new schedules in January we'll be able to have knitting time at lunch. I just got an easy sock pattern using the after-thought heel and woolease/size 5 needles, so maybe we can use that to start. Since I taught myself to knit, I have a hard time teaching other people what to do. If someone had taught me, I might have some idea of how it was explained to me, and therefore be able to explain it to someone else. I can only show them.

Today I watched an episode of Knitty Gritty that featured knit ankle boots. And I can only say - WHY? And I noticed that the same boring episodes of Knit One, Purl Two are on again. I think there were only 6 episodes of that show taped, and none of them are that outstanding, although I love her baby blanket. Can't afford to make it, but I love it just the same. I will say one thing - that show was on about 3-4 years ago when I first started knitting and the hat pattern she did in the round with Noro Silk Garden was probably my first project with "real" yarn. I'd been to the yarn shop before, but hadn't gotten into any of the special yarns, and that pattern is what really prompted me to give expensive stuff a shot. Of course, 1 ball of that yarn is not enough to make a hat that is big enough for my head, but that didn't stop me from making 2 or 3 of them anyway! Just love the way that yarn stripes!

Unraveled: Episode 2

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 23:43:00 -0500

Finally, here is the 2nd episode of Unraveled: Shannon's Battle with Life & Yarn. I think I finally figured out a work-around for the recording of the show and conversion to mp3 format, it's just a tiresome and drawn out process. Now, be patient while I try to work on the RSS feed!

Black Friday

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 23:54:00 -0500

Ok, first let me start by saying, due to technical difficulties, I have not been able to get episode 2 of Unraveled into mp3 format, but I'm still working on it.

Today we got up at 4:10am to go do the early bird black friday sales. It was the first & last time we'll probably bother. We stood in line at Best Buy behind about 1,000 other people, and by the time we actually got in the store everything in the ad was "sold out" until the next wave came up in inventory at 10am, of course after the sale was over. I'm sure it makes sense to someone to purposely withold product that you have people standing there with cash in hand, but it doesn't make much sense to me. Dh got a wool pea-coat from BonTon, reg $150, for $48. We got all the kids done at Toys R Us, which was a relief. I went to AC Moore because they had a 60% off coupon, of course spending way more than I wanted or needed. I got wool to make dh a ribbed scarf (boring!) to wear with the coat. Grey! I was trying for red or blue, but he insisted on boring grey. I got some sequined yarn in deep purple to make myself a little coin pouch, and 6 bright balls of crap cotton to make spa facecloths for christmas gifts. I also picked up the Little Box of Scarves with the coupon. I also picked up pads of christmas and pastel scrapbooking paper, for scrapbooks and also for letter writing, etc. The paper is cheap enough if you buy it in bulk packs when it's also on sale, so I don't feel like it's a waste to write a letter or copy a pattern onto the fancy paper.

This afternoon I ran to the yarn shop for another set of Lantern Moon needles, my new obsession. I thought I loved Brittany's but these are better. They are also a lot more expensive. I now have sizes 7 and 10. I decided that if I'm making 4 cloths x at least 5 people, it was worth the $19.99 investment.

I also got my 2nd shipment of sock & shawl yarn from Knitpicks today. I love when the cute mailman brings me yarn - that's a dream come true. I was really impressed with the Color Your Own wool, it's not as thin as the Zephyr I was comparing it to in my mind. Now I need a nice simple pattern to turn those 2 big skeins into an awesome warm wrap. I have so many gifts going. Today my mom mentioned wanting me to make her friend a red felted purse for christmas. I don't mind, the felting projects go fast because of the huge needles. Unfortunately, she didn't mention it before I went to the yarn shop. Now I'll have to make a special trip - Darn!

Oh - My - God!

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 21:56:00 -0500

Can you believe this? I've been mentioned by name on another podcast! From Europe! I'm totally tweaking here! I got a comment email today from Marie, who mentioned me in her own podcast KnitCast! I feel like a star!

In the wake of this recognition, I feel like I must put out episode 2 right away. The problem is trying to get it recorded without everyone in my family hearing me talking to myself! This is something that my parents would never be able to comprehend and my husband humors me about.

The good news is that I am making knitting progress. 1 sock down, 2nd wedge of my Pie Wedge Ravenswood shawl finished, Clapotis still moving forward slowly but surely.

Episode 2 of Unraveled will be posted tomorrow. And, I am working on the whole RSS feed thing - apparently that's what officially makes an mp3 file into a "podcast" - who knew!?

Sock Addiction

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 22:40:00 -0500

Ok, I know I'm now completely addicted to sock knitting. I realized that I may or may not have enough to yarn to do the toe & heel on first Knit Picks Parade "Gumball" socks using the afterthought heel. What should I do? Hop online and order $30 more sock yarn, of course! I picked up 1 skein of each of the 3 colorways I bought last time, 2 skeins of the fingeringweight Crayons colorway, 3 skeins of a blue/black colorway of the fingering weight yarn for dh's socks. I love the afterthought heel idea. Now, when I'm cursing about doing the heel in a few days, remind me I said this. But my big hangup with socks is that I get stuck at the heel/gusset because I hate having to pay attention to what decreasing I need to do. I feel like I spend all my time counting and recounting. This method allows me to spend my knitting time actually knitting, and then when the time comes to do the heel, I can choose a quiet time when I have the ability to pay attention to what I'm doing. I've whipped up most of a sock in the past 2 days. I can even get dh's big socks done within a week at this rate. With the sucky winter weather upon us, I will probably stay indoors during my lunch break and just work on my sock at my desk like I did today. The thing I love about striping yarn is that it's so easy to see progress and measure how much of the knitting you want to get done in a specific amount of time. I usually pull 1 stripe of yarn out of the ball at a time so I can see that I'm making progress as I go. I might need to buy more dpns, which I never thought I'd have to do, since I had so many. But now I can see myself having a pair on the needles at home and at work at the same time. I just hope that I don't regret spending the money on the lighter weight yarns. I have a lot of them already, but sometimes the stuff you already have doesn't inspire you. I also picked up some natural undyed lace weight wool to make into either a lace scarf or shawl. I image painting it with dye after it's knit up... with polka dots and wiggles.

Too many choices

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 22:39:00 -0500

This week I have been doing a lot of knitting, but not making a whole heck of a lot of progress. Last night I was even contemplating declaring myself "done" with knitting once I run out of yarn. Ha! That lasted until this afternoon when I got purple & red woolease to make my daughter a "red hat ladies" scarf for her red winter coat. Last night I stopped on the way home and picked up a book called "Not Just Socks" which has patterns for self patterning sock yarn being used for socks, gloves, legwarmers, scarves, hats, you name it. I've been wanting to make myself gauntlets or fingerless gloves, so that was my first intention, but then I realized there was a pattern for afterthought heel socks, so that's what I cast on for last night with some of the yarn I got from Knit Picks a week or so ago. I also picked up a bunch of new stitch markers (the lost sock fairy seems to be getting into the knitting implement business - I seem to be losing them at Mach speed!) and a Crocheknit cable hook to use with the woolease I picked up today for that scarf. Let me just save you all the wonder and tell you that it's a very long process to get any substantial length built up, and you'd certainly do better with either crochet or knitting than trying to combine them both and coming up with something sort of sloppy looking. I picked up the stitch markers to use on my Clapotis scarf, which is coming along, however I am still doing the set up rows - I have about 30 rows left to go before it's the correct width and I can start dropping stitches.

Oh, another fun thing I did today - went to a new store that opened here, "Steve & Barry's University Sportswear." I've seen the store on my trips to Buffalo but had never been inside of it. LOVE the store!!! Guess where my christmas shopping will be done? Everything in the store is 9.98 or less! Even coats! I'm not a sports fan, but they have other cool stuff like tshirts with cool sayings on them (I got dh a hoodie that says "I see dumb people" and a ribbed shirt he can wear to work, and a New York faux-long sleeve under short sleeve shirt in an awesome shade of pink that I've found I look awesome in - and it came in my size XXL - all 3 items came to 30.17 with tax!) I asked the cashier if the 9.98 or less pricing was permanent or just for the grand opening, and he said that the prices might go up a little, but not much - according to the website nothing is over $10 in any of their stores - but the guy also told me that the Buffalo store also has a high price of 7.98. In my town we had this awesome mall built in 1990, which rapidly declined to 3 anchor stores (ie - Sears) and a few vitamin (GNC/Vitamin World) & sporting good stores like Champs & Footlocker. Even the foodcourt emptied out over time. Well, a new developer bought the mall around this time last year, worked out tax breaks in order to get the ball rolling. They renamed the mall "Medley Centre" ( I remember when they opened the mall 15 years ago and it was named Irondequoit Mall and on our town markers at the edge of town, they said "Home of Irondequoit Mall" - There was such outrage from the townspeople that they eventually took them down - they said that we were much more than a place with a mall. ) What has been really sad for me is that I remember spending so much time there as a teenager, I worked there for several years, at CVS (where I met my husband), Electronics Boutique, Lechters, Lauriats Books. My husband & I met there and had a lot of friends there. And then the place turned into a ghost town, where the only people there were either the geriatric coffee crowd, the power walkers, and the shoplifters. There had been rumors that people were being mugged and attacked there, and of course no one ever made a strong enough point that these incidents were usually urban legends, so the fear started bleeding into the community of snobby suburbanites. People have been critical of the mall since day one, saying it was a mistake to build it in the first place. These pompous assholes are the reason the place fails, because people like them are the ones making the decisions as to what should be in the mall... and they think they have their hand on the pulse of the shoppers in our area. The mall is on the city border, and a lot of urban culture is centered around showing off certain things, like the brand of shoes and clothing, the jewelry, the electronics... and brand name stuff doesn't come cheap. Instead of having those stores in our mall, where it might attract undesirable shoppers, we make them drive across the city and spend their $150 on sneakers in another suburb. Somehow, that was making sense to the decision makers. On the other hand, my wealthy cousins will go out of their way to purchase something "average" at the best price they can find. I'm just hoping that the mall gets back in working order, because it's a shame to see it going to waste. They are opening a kids play area next month, which I can't wait to see. I am the type of person that will frequent a place that I want to see succeed, even if it's not the "best" place to go. I figure that if we all give up on the newbies, places like my favorite yarn shop wouldn't exist. I thought it was humorous to see all the town board folks there to observe the shoppers actually showing up there today... the town supervisor taught me Clarinet as the music teacher when I was in 5th grade, one of the other board members was the career placement person at the business school I attended, failed me on my mock interview because my skirt was too short (ok, now, ya'll know how conscious I am of my weight and that I'm overweight - I've NEVER been accused of wearing anything too tight/short before or since), and the only person she succeeded in getting a job was herself.

Anyway, off the soapbox...

After the mall, we went to lunch and the woman behind me had a kureyon felted bag that was looking as ratty as mine do after a few weeks of wear. I'm going to start a new felted bag using some of the Cascade 220 I have stockpiled. Not sure if it will be striped, intarsia, or solid - I need to think some more about it. I do have that book 1000 knitted motifs that I could use. I've never done intarsia, although I have done a lot of fair isle, so maybe that will be my next challenge. My need for warm things may be going downhill again, they seem to have the temp in my office set to "brick oven" lately - to the point that I'm getting physically ill from being too warm, coming home feeling dehydrated, headachy and nauseated. But a new purse is never a bad idea!

Unraveled: Shannon's Battle with Life and Yarn

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Wed, 9 Nov 2005 22:49:00 -0500

Ok, here's my first attempt at podcasting. I will warn you that I was very nervous at the beginning and my script reading is evident. Hopefully I can loosen up for the next bit. Please, any comments are welcome, topics are encouraged. I expect to do more with the next one - this was enough of a trick to put out for now. I need to try out different software - the stuff I downloaded already sucks. Since I don't know any famous knitters, I can't do interviews. Since my software won't allow me to record music at an audible level, I can't do that at this point either... but I'm working on it.

I also received the bag of !!FABULOUS!! sock yarns from Knit Picks today. Very cool striping yarn, enough for 4 pairs for me and a pair for dh. I started a pair of legwarmers today since dh forgot to bring home my sock in progress from work. The cold nasty weather is upon us, I've lost almost 20 pounds, and I'm feeling chilly almost continuously. I'm planning to make myself wool scarves, gloves or mittens, and legwarmers to get thru the winter. I think I might use some of the striping yarn to make Jo a pair of legwarmers, too. At least if it's sock yarn it won't shrink or felt if it gets thrown in the washer/dryer. I'm using a heathered green with hints of red & navy Cascade 220 to make my "Minimal Legwarmers" from The Knit Stitch, a book I've decided I really NEED in my collection. I'm not sure what size to make Jo's... how tight, how long. They will likely need to fit over her pants and under her winter boots. I don't know if I should make them fitted at her ankle so she can wear them around the house without them bagging down and making her trip over them. I have a book of legwarmer patterns, but none are for a size 4-5T child.

Broadcast Background

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Wed, 2 Nov 2005 04:48:00 -0500

Ok, it's 4:48am and I'm wide awake. Only at this hour of the morning could an idea become so exciting that you can't sleep. I was awoken by a crash as dishes dh had stacked fell on the floor, then of course I was up and we bitched about our jobs a bit, he crashed at 2:30 and I decided to check my email and browse my daily links. I was on Laura's site and decided to click the links to the podcasts she'd mentioned. I listened to a few minutes of Cast-On and thought "Hey, I can do this!" I was a DJ in high school and miss that soapbox. I miss the creative aspect of it - preparing the material for the show, what music you are going to play, what tidbits of information & trivia you'll share, what recent experiences you want to express your opinions about. And what the hell, if no one listens to it, what difference does it make? I'll still have the experience of creating the 'cast. No pressure, no live dead air to contend with, and what the heck - it might help my performance at my job if I'm getting some practice with speaking slowly and clearly. The next step is to get a headset with Mic if we don't already have one around here. I'm psyched. Anyone have any advice?

More Sock Yarn

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Sun, 30 Oct 2005 21:38:00 -0500

Well, I couldn't resist the Knitpicks email yesterday, so I ordered 11 skeins of sock yarn last night. Enough for 4 pairs for me and 1 for dh. How could I resist, at 2.99/ball? Dh said, "well, order $20 worth" when I mentioned that there was a good deal on the yarn. I said, "But, button - it's free shipping if you spend $30" and then he said to go ahead, it was better to spend $30 on 10 balls of yarn than hundreds of dollars on a few, like I tend to do. And, I also got 3 balls in a manly-ish colorway to make him a pair of socks. He likes the Regia socks I made him and reminded me that I'd started a pair for him. I didn't feel like working on those, so I pulled out the yarn I got from Smiley's a while back and started a pair of boring ribbed socks from my Vogue Knitting on the Go book (I think it was Socks II). I'm about 2" into the cuff on the first sock, using size 1 needles and green/beige/grey yarn that looks sort of camoflauge-y. I hate ribbing, but I'm going to force myself to follow this pattern. If I finish a pair for dh, I can work on the next pair for myself without feeling guilty about it. I still need to finish up the pair for my mom as well. Those are being done with the Magic Loop method and I get tired of dealing with that in short spurts - it's hard to get back in the groove.

BYO CYO

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 22:20:00 -0400

Well, today I dug out my CYO Philosopher's Wool sweater and worked a few rows. It's going to get done eventually, but probably not before spring. I bought this kit in Nov 2003 and have been swearing that I will get it done each winter & spring ever since. I think I'm about 16" done with the body, just 3 more inches to go before I start the armhole steeks. At this rate, it will be 2007 before I get to the shoulders, and probably another 2 years before I actually have the guts to cut open the steeks.

Blogger to the Rescue

shannon@huggybutton.com (Shannon Schaurer) — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 14:00:00 -0400

What do you do when your website hasn't been updated in a whole year? You figure out how to get blogger to point to that index.html page of the site and start uploading pictures! My family website hadn't been updated since LAST HALLOWEEN!!! I lost FrontPage when I reformatted my hard drive and haven't been able to find the disk for it to reinstall, so I gave up and went with Blogger for now. At least they've updated it to the point that you can upload pictures directly from the interface now (something I hadn't realized in the past). Hmm, I may actually get some pix up on this site now. I've decided to keep this blog going only because I can be more blunt here than where my family goes to see what's going on. And I'm opening that site so that Alan and possibly some other family members can post to it.

I haven't gotten much in the way of knitting done lately since my wrists have been so sore. I did crochet a quick scarf for Courtney out of Paton's Be Mine yesterday. I had to double strand it with a size P hook, the only way to crochet with that crap because it's impossible to see the stitches. I put a 3 stitch hole in it to tuck the other end thru so that it doesn't fall off. Both girls love it.

Yesterday I came to the sobering conclusion that I'm not having any more kids, so I can start doing away with some of the kids patterns and books I have in my stash and also go thru my storage units and get rid of so much stuff I had been saving for baby #3. As long as I don't dwell on what I'm possibly giving up, it should be theraputic to purge that stuff. It's not like we're getting sterilized or anything - we can have another baby down the road if we decide to.