April Fool

Happy April Fool's Day! I'm happy to report that I have not been "fooled" (yet), despite going into work today. Honestly, I expected a lot of jokes to be played behind the scenes at Panera, but I didn't witness a single one. I'm glad, but also surprised, because not only could we go for "your shoe's untied" we could say that each other's aprons were untied, hats were messed up, we'd spilled stuff on ourselves, or any number of other things.

I'm thinking about playing a joke on Logan, but I really can't think of anything good. Pretty much everything in our apartment is shared, so I don't want to cover anything in tinfoil or saran wrap because that would also inconvenience me, and that defeats the purpose of a good prank. Hiding his stuff wouldn't be funny--just mean--as would telling a lie of some sort to scare him.

I guess I'll just play a time-worn favorite and tell him his shoe is untied.

Still a Long Way to Go

After some deliberation I've decided not to recount a history of feminism to you here on the blog and instead jump into the subject I'd really like to talk about: why I think it's still important now. A lot of people know the bare bones history of the movement, and if you're interested in its roots, I suggest starting with Wikipedia (I know, I'm not supposed to say things like that, but this isn't a scholarly essay) and then heading to your library. There's far too much for me to get into here, and there's plenty of others who have told the story wonderfully.

What I want to talk about is what feminism is to me personally. I have a pretty simple definition -- equal rights for all regardless of gender. That's the basis anyway. But to me feminism encompasses a lot more than that. It's about equal rights for everybody, because why allow anybody to suffer inequality for any reason? For the sake of (some semblance of) brevity, I'll just focus on why the movement is still important to me and important for the world in the context of gender equality.

Though we have made huge strides for gender equality here in the U.S., things still aren't great for women in the world as a whole. In many countries women are still considered their husband's property or a commodity for fathers to trade. Abuse and rape go unpunished because these women have no rights, no voice, and no one to fight for them. Here it's easier for women to fight back against such treatment, but still difficult in a lot of cases. There's such a culture of fear and guilt that women suffer through when it comes to mistreatment.

As if the fear women feel when walking alone in a strange place or at night, or the guilt many feel after being mistreated -- as if they were asking for it -- wasn't enough, there are also impossible standards of perfection women are held to that men simply don't have to deal with. Women must be perfect mothers, have perfect homes, and most importantly, flawless looks in order to be considered good women.

And don't even get me started on the double standards women have to put up with when it comes to sexuality.

We still have a long way to go when it comes to gender equality, and until everything is just right, feminism will be there leading the way.

Held at the Starting Gate

I am working on putting together a post about why I think feminism is important, but as you may expect, it's not so easy to articulate! So, instead of continuing my series of posts on my journey through the movement today, I'd like to share some information on my sweater.

I ended up going with Knit Picks' "Wool of the Andes," just like I thought I would, and eventually chose the color "Victorian." Here's the picture from their website, since it pretty accurately depicts the color:

That gorgeous, dusky rose goes with much more than you'd immediately think, while being more interesting to stare at for hours on end than grey.

I've taken my measurements, picked my pattern, received my yarn, and I'm so ready to start working on this sweater. There's just one problem; I'm not getting gauge.

I've swatched and swatched, but I just can't match stitches per inch with the designer of the Enrobed Wrap, Amy Herzog. I'm consistently one off in either direction, which doesn't seem like much, but alters the way the sweater will fit a great deal. So now I'm left with four major options:

1. Go with the pattern I've picked and my current gauge and hope that it doesn't make too much of a difference in the finished sweater.
2. Alter the pattern to match my current gauge, involving a fair bit of both math and intuition.
3. Find a different sweater pattern that has a gauge that matches mine with this yarn.
4. Buy a different yarn for the current sweater pattern.

I'm thinking number 2 is my best bet, with number 1 as a close second. I just wish everything had worked the first time!

My Introduction to Feminism

Before I get into what feminism means to me and how I apply it to my daily life, I'd like to talk about how I discovered feminism. Ironically enough, it was because of a man. This man, to be exact:


Dr. John Alberti taught an Honors class titled "Feminist Punk Rock and Women's Protest Music" that I was lucky enough to take my sophomore year of college. It remains my favorite class I took at NKU and honestly changed my life.

Before Punk Rock, I'd only heard of feminism in the vaguest terms. I'm ashamed to say that I thought feminism was only something used for women's suffrage, and then it disappeared. Fortunately, I learned that feminism gained steam during women's suffrage, but boy, it wasn't done by a long shot after we got the vote.

Our class focused on the Riot Grrrl movement of the early 90s. Riot Grrrl, in a nutshell, was a bunch of girls and women deciding they were tired of the music scene being dominated by boys and men and storming the stages for themselves. This musical movement was in conjunction with a literary movement that saw a flood of "zines" being created by girls all over the country in an effort to connect with other girls and start raising awareness about issues such as body image, sexual abuse, depression, and much more.

Riot Grrrl inspired me so much that I decided to write a novella for my Honors Capstone about the subject. During my research, I discovered The Riot Grrrl Collection.


This book is a collection of zines from the period and proved itself invaluable time and again throughout my writing. It allows the reader to see for themselves what made the movement so special by reading the texts, rather than hearing analyses of the texts. Plus, it's just a gorgeous book to own with its glossy, full-color pages.

For class we read Girls to the Front, another book I highly recommend.


It tells the story of the bands, how the movement got its start and gathered steam, and even its eventual fizzling out. It's a great read, and a good primer for budding young feminists.

Besides the literature I was exposed to in class -- which will probably have its own post, because there has been a lot -- I heard a ton of great music. Bands like Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, Letters to Cleo, and The Donnas have played their way into my heart since the first moments I heard them. To this day I find myself turning to their music whenever I need a hit of grrrl power, and experiencing them has changed the way I listen to music. If you want to listen to some of it, I've created a playlist on Spotify that I welcome you to check out (just search my name, you'll know which playlist it is).

I hope you'll check out some of the resources I've shared and discover a side of feminism that I never knew existed and will forever have a place of honor in my heart because it introduced me to the movement as a whole.

Panera, Joe, and Feminism

Everyone who works at Panera has a plethora of duties to take care of during each shift. There's a lot that needs to get done and things only run smoothly when everyone pitches in and goes a little bit above and beyond. Because I'm me and I apparently enjoy giving myself a lot of work, I've taken on one more responsibility in addition to all the others.

I'm going to teach one of my coworkers all about feminism.

The other day one of my coworkers, we'll call him Joe, and I were chatting as I ordered food from his register at break. I gave him the number for my MyPanera card and he selected my name when it came on the screen. He looked at it for a second, then asked me what my name was before I got married.

"Shuler. I kept my name when I got married," I answered. He looked confused.

"You can do that?"

I educated him on the practice of keeping one's name and told him why I chose to do so. His interest peaked when I mentioned feminism. He told me he didn't know what that was.

He genuinely  had no idea what feminism was.

Joe is a young guy in the middle of his college career that generally knows what's going on, but he'd never heard of feminism before. I'm disappointed by what this says about our school systems and general public awareness, but selfishly happy that I'm the one who gets to share such a powerful movement with a newbie. We had a good long chat about what feminism means to me and how I got started, and I think our next talk is going to cover why we still need feminism today. 

My conversations with Joe have inspired me to share my thoughts on feminism with you, because you may not know why I feel so strongly about the movement. So soon comes a less off-the-cuff version of what I told Joe feminism means to me.

Location, Location, Location

Today at work I helped three people who had never been to Panera before. This happens all the time, since ours is a new location, but it was odd that all of these people specifically mentioned that they'd never been because they live far away from a Panera and just happened to be in the neighborhood.

It got me thinking about my hometown and how I felt as if I was ages away from everything. It always seemed as if everywhere worth being was at least half an hour away. It's funny because in my hometown with "nothing" in it, we had four fast food restaurants, six or seven sit-down restaurants, two grocery stores, and a super Wal-Mart. Nothing indeed.

Now that I live in the Cincinnati area, I have access to anything I could want within a 15 minute radius. It's amazing, but sometimes I forget just how convenient and special that is. Honestly, I take it for granted. Next time I think to myself I wish I didn't have to go so far for X, I'm going to stop and appreciate just how close that actually is and how lucky I am to live an area with so much, and that I'm fortunate enough that nothing is holding me back from enjoying everything it has to offer.

Sweater Decision

Well, I have finally decided on a sweater: the "Enrobed Wrap" from Amy Herzog's book Fit to Flatter.


Isn't it super cute? Plus, I think any small sizing issues I make can be compensated for with the tie on the side. Since this will be my first sweater, I can foresee many sizing issues happening. But you better believe I'm going to swatch like crazy to avoid as many of them as possible.

Now I just have to figure out what yarn I'm going to use. I'm thinking KnitPicks' "Wool of the Andes" since it's cheap and comes in any color I could want. Of course, having that many color selections isn't helping me choose any faster. What lovely decision making problems to have!

The Cave

Logan bought a subscription to PlayStation Plus about a year ago and we've gotten a ton of games from it. Most of them are things I'm not really interested in, so I don't pay a whole lot of attention to the list. But recently, The Cave caught my attention.

Image from gamingbolt.com

Basically, you play as three characters at a time, each of which has a bit of darkness in his/her past. Over the course of the game, you discover bits of their story by playing through puzzles and finding cave paintings that show a piece of whatever secret they're hiding. It's a fun puzzle/platformer that moves quickly and is quite charming, in a dark kind of way.

I played through with the scientist, the time traveler, and the monk. All of the stories were pretty good, but the monk really got to me. You see, the other two were dark because they centered on slightly evil choices. I won't spoil anything, but trust me, they were occurrences that everyone would say "of course you wouldn't just do that."

But the monk was different. His dark secret came about because he wanted to be something that he simply wasn't. He tried so hard to change himself, but just wasn't good at what he desired to do. His story hit me hard, because it touched upon insecurities I know that  I carry and that I suspect many other people carry as well. What if we're not actually good at what we're trying to do?

I, for example, feel that way about my writing. What if I'm trying for naught? Am I secretly the monk, doing my best for an ultimately hopeless goal?

I sure hope not.

Help! I Can't Stop Watching Murder, She Wrote

Lately, I've found myself in a loop of little creativity. I get home from work and all I want to do is lay down for a minute to get off my feet, have some tea, and watch an episode of Murder, She Wrote. One episode turns into many episodes and, before I know it, it's bedtime.

Because of this, I haven't had much knitting to share. I'm still working on Logan's Magic Socks, but grey stockinette doesn't make for the most exciting pictures. I'm also searching for a the perfect sweater pattern, which has been easier than I expected. In fact, it's been too easy. Now I have to choose between all the brilliant sweater patterns I've found!

In an attempt to boost my creative output, both in knitting and writing, I'm going to blog every day for an entire week, just to see what happens. So I'll see you again tomorrow. Until then

How to Be a Good Customer

Working in the food service industry, and particularly in a restaurant with a drive-through, has taught me quite a bit about what happens behind the scenes of the places I eat. It has also taught me some things that separate good customers from bad customers. So far, I've worked mostly in the drive-through, so most of my observations will be taken from that standpoint. With that in mind, I present

How to Be a Good Customer:

1. Know What You Want: You don't have to know exactly what you want, but you should have a general idea to work with. If you don't know what you want, that's ok too, but be willing to stand to the side while you think about it. Don't hold up the line by trying to think at the register.
2. Have Your Money Ready: This is more of a drive-through problem. If the line has stopped and you have some time in your car, pull your money out. Can't remember the exact total? Just have your wallet ready.
3. Correct Mistakes Gently: If we make a mistake with your order, let us know so we can fix it. But please don't raise your voice or start throwing blame around. Sometimes things just slip through the cracks during all the hustle and bustle of preparing food, especially during the lunch rush. 
4. Leave Yourself Plenty of Time: If you're in a rush, we can't make an exception to get you out the door quicker. It's first come, first serve. Even if the person in front of you has a large or complicated order. This rule is especially true if you are placing a large or complicated order. It's going to take longer than normal.
5. Want, Don't Need: Admittedly, this one doesn't have a whole lot to do with being a good or bad customer, but it's a pet peeve of mine. You want your combo meal with an extra large frozen fancy drink -- you don't need it. Say so.

Creepy Kids, Awesome Princesses, and a Woman Who Knows Her Worth

I've been getting a lot of reading done recently, and wanted to share with you some of the books I've finished recently. All of these reviews are cross-posted from my Goodreads account.


Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Synopsis
Professor Henry Higgins is a phoeneticist who prides himself on both his mastery of the English language and his ability to teach others to speak properly as well. When he runs into a flower girl named Liza Doolittle who has an extremely thick Cockney accent, he bets his friend Colonel Pickering that he can pass her off as a lady within six months.

Review
I wasn't crazy about Pygmalion, but I liked it well enough, so it gets a solid three stars from me. I was expecting the story to be more about the process of Liza's transformation from flower girl to lady, but in actually it focused on the way she was treated by others.

That being said, I think it's fascinating to look at how Liza views herself and her worth, and that she's so conscious of the importance of how others view her. She flat-out says as much to Pickering towards the end of the play. So often women are portrayed as self-deprecating and humble to the point of shaming themselves, but not so with Liza. From the very beginning she holds herself in high esteem, and gives Higgins the what-for when he doesn't see her as worth much.

I am bothered by the fact that Higgins never apologizes for the way he objectifies and uses Liza, but I'm bothered even more so by his lack of even really seeing the problem. Liza explains how she feels to Higgins, but he just doesn't get it, saying that he treats everyone the same, so what does it matter? He has a deeply ingrained sense of self-importance and righteousness that got under my skin for the entire story and left me fuming when he never seemed to feel bad about any of it. But, that's life I guess, and it probably would have felt inauthentic if he had changed.

I would recommend this if you're looking for:
*a short read
*something that's referenced a lot
*a strong female character who steals the spotlight



Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Synopsis
Jacob is a 16 year old boy who has lived with his grandfather's stories about monsters and super-human children for his entire life. After his grandfather is killed by one of the monsters that has haunted his memories, Jacob sets out to a remote island to find the orphanage his grandfather grew up in with hopes to learn more about his past. There he finds the peculiar children and learns that there's more to his world than he ever could have bargained for.

Review
Peculiar Children was a fast read that I had a lot of fun with. The story moves quickly and the pictures themselves were interesting enough to make me keep going, just so I could see the next one. Jacob's struggles with not trusting his own mind keep him an interesting character to follow and add a layer of depth to what could have otherwise been a very boring protagonist.

The book feels like more of a set-up than a story at first, until Jacob actually finds the peculiar children, which doesn't happen until fairly late. But I found out that this is a series, not a stand-alone as I originally thought, so that makes sense. I'm definitely going to continue reading, especially since Riggs drops you at a point in the story where things are really heating up.

Read this if you like:
*YA fiction
*slightly disturbing photographs
*monsters
*something quick and light



Princesses Behaving Badly: Real Stories from History Without the Fairy-Tale Endings by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Synopsis
Princesses haven't always been the cute, friendly Disney versions we're all used to. Many princesses in history have been killers, rebels, independent spirits, and/or clinically insane.

Review
I saw this hanging out in my library's new arrivals section and had to have it. Princesses being awesome -- yes, please! I wanted feminism and great stories and surprises, and boy, this book delivered.

The only problem I had with it was McRobbie's lack of "scholarly" sources. A lot of the stories come from local tales and writings steeped in gossip and rumor. But, McRobbie is completely up front about that fact, and if you aren't concerned with having the 100% absolute truth and just want awesome stories, you should definitely check this one out.

In addition to the stories themselves being pretty fantastic, I loved McRobbie's writing style. She is educational without being dry or condescending. She's witty and snarky without being rude. She makes you feel included and excited, and I plan on looking her up to see if there's more for me to read!

I would recommend for anyone interested in:
*princesses
*women going against the grain
*old-school politics
*folklore

Work and Celebration

Long time, no see!

Things have been a bit hectic in the Shuler/Smith household lately, but in a happy kind of way. I got a job! A Panera opened up near the apartment, and they hired me on so I can earn some money while searching for a career in my field. Overall, I like working there quite a bit, but my training schedule was frantic and unpredictable, so the blog suffered.

But training week is over, which means I have a stable schedule, and that's good news for Scraps of Yarn. In fact, partly to celebrate and partly to get away from the color gray for a bit, I started a new project. It's Hibernatum, a cute little beanie-style hat I came across on Ravelry. I've shared the one of the project page pictures below.



I'm making my own out of Cascade Yarns' Cherub DK, which I won from my local yarn store a couple months ago when Cascade Yarns had a "yarn tasting" there. I probably never would have picked up this yarn if I were on my own because it's acrylic, and the only acrylic yarn I've had any experience with is Red Heart, which I am not a fan of. But so far I've loved working with Cherub. It's super soft and has a nice spring when worked up, which I didn't expect from an acrylic. I'll share a picture of my progress when it looks less like a shapeless blob and more like a hat.

Until then!

Magic Socks: The Easy Way

I started the Magic Socks over one last time and decided to make things easier on myself. DPNs, one at a time.

And look how much I've gotten done! Sometimes trying to streamline things just makes them slower. When working this way I don't have to look, which means I can read or watch tv while knitting and the time passes faster.

Because when knitting plain, stockinette stitch socks, every little bit of quickly passing time makes a huge difference.

Magic Socks: The Beginning (Again)

I gave up on intarsia socks for the moment. I am weak and impatient. This is what remains of the socks from last post:

Nothing but a ripped up mess.

HOWEVER, the Magic Socks will continue, because they're going to be awesome and Logan will love them. Instead of doing intarsia, I had the bright idea of using my multi-craft nature to my advantage. Why not knit the socks, then crochet an applique water drop to sew on?

Why not, indeed.

But because I'm me, I had to make things difficult for myself.

I'm going to make them two at a time on one circular needle. Wish me luck.

Magic Socks: The Beginning

I consider myself the type of person who likes a challenge, which, overall, isn't a bad thing. It helps me learn and grow, I think I'm aware of my abilities and limitations more than most people, and others tend to appreciate someone who doesn't back away from something just because it's scary. 

However, there are times when this aspect of my personality becomes frustrating. Let me share my current example.

Logan, my husband (which still feels really weird to say but I love it), has a pair of socks that I knit him a while back. If you've been around for a while, you may remember them.

They turned out to be a bigger hit than I expected, since he wears them all the time. This makes me super happy because I love making Logan things, but it's hard to get him to wear knitted stuff.

After noticing that Logan enjoys wearing his socks to Magic the Gathering tournaments because they're special--which everyone knows improves your luck--I decided that I wanted to make him a pair of Magic socks. And I wanted to design them myself, not modify a pattern.

Easy enough, right? Socks aren't that hard to knit, and Logan doesn't like super fancy designs anyway, so they'd air on the basic side. What a great way to start designing! I had this idea for a super cool pair of socks featuring the symbol of his favorite element in Magic, water.

Image from wiki.mtgsalvation.com

After some research, I discovered that the best way to make that happen was to use intarsia knitting -- a technique that allows the knitter to create pictures. Below is an example.

Image from purlbee.com

Well, it turns out that intarsia knitting is a bit of a pain in the rear to handle and attempting to learn it on a sock is pure folly. Did that stop me? Nope! I got a small portion of the water droplet done this evening.

You may be thinking, "Autumn, that looks pretty good! Why do you say it's a pain in the rear and you're crazy for trying?" Because, dear Reader, the sock actually looks like this.

And that means I'm doing it right.

But you better believe that I'm going to finish it, because it's going to be awesome. I just have to keep an extra careful eye on the cats!

A Fresh Start

This is not going to be a very happy blog entry.

You see, today I'm going to frog a very decent chunk of sweater. This much sweater, to be precise:

I've thought long and hard about this decision and no matter how much it pains me to start this sweater over (for the third time), I think it's the right choice. I'm just not feeling right about the shaping and don't think it's going to work for my body as-is, so I'm going to rip back and do some modifications so I'm happier with it. It will be worth it to put the extra hours in for a sweater I'm happy with rather than get a mediocre product I'll never wear just because I was impatient.

Wish me luck.

...

P.S. To the person who keeps giving my blog entries +1's -- thank you. It's so nice to see that!