Shuttlebug Make and Take, Haruni the Third Completed, and a Conclusion to the iPhone Saga

For our program at last week's Shuttlebug Guild meeting we made pins.

We had a variety of threads to use that we wrapped around small squares of mat board.

These were our inspiration pins.

I liked the one on the bottom right. We used double sided sticky tape on the back to hold the threads.

This was my version. Then we attached a pin to a piece of black felt and glued it onto the back.

Here is Judy's. She used variegated thread and it turned out really well.

Carol Ann's sister, Gale, was visiting and was able to join us for the day. Here is the pin she made.

I'll have to remember to wear mine to the next meeting for 'show and tell'.

Speaking of show and tell. I got my latest Haruni shawl blocked in time to wear to the meeting.

From humble beginnings...

Don't let the edging discourage you from trying this pattern. The main part is a simple lace pattern which you can make bigger by adding repeats of the pattern. There is no tedious counting of stitches before you start the lovely, leafy border. Simply complete an even number of the 'leaves' in the main shawl. No matter what size you make, you will need at least 500yd of fingering weight yarn - more than one skein. There will probably be enough left over from the second skein to make a cowl or even a pair of ladies' socks.

The bind-off row looks crocheted but it is indeed knit with very clear instructions in the pattern. to close the points of the leaves, you simply knit 3 sts together.

The blocking does take some doing, I admit. I recommend you have a good look at a photo of one on Ravelry to see how the border and point work. I chose to run wires on either side of the 'spine' stitches and through the eyelet on the long side. then I pinned out the two loops on either side of the eyelet points. Then each individual loop. Believe me, taking the time to do a good pinning job really is worth it. I also measure along the top edges from the centre to the tips to make sure I've pinned it symmetrically. The shawl will fold up properly as a result.

And finally, I've had Wifi connection problems with my iPhone 4S since about the middle of February. It was very frustrating in Texas not to be able to connect to Wifi with it and I hadn't taken my iPod Touch along, which could have done it instead. The iPhone either wouldn't even find a network to connect to, or if it did connect, the connection would disappear after about 15 seconds. Long enough to download email sometimes but not long enough to do any browsing with Wifi.

On Monday we went to the local Apple store to see what could be done. It was going to cost over $300 with tax to replace the 3 year-old phone with the same model. The Apple employee then suggested that for another $150, I could upgrade to a brand new iPhone 5C. The only problem was they only come with 8GB and I already had 11GB on my 4S without any music files at all. I needed more storage. The 16GB 5C was yet a couple of hundred dollars more. I figured while we were in that ball park, I might as well update to the most recent model, the iPhone 6. It, however, didn't have a 32GB model so I bit the bullet and got the 64GB model. I can now put my music files on it.

The reason I didn't buy the new phone with a new contract is that I have an OLD plan from 20 years ago that only costs $15 per month which gives me enough minutes to do everything I need to do by cell phone. I also have a $25/m data plan. I have been advised by many people to never give up the phone plan unless I want to pay a lot more. The only down side is that I don't have call display on the plan and I do pay extra for texts. But I save at least $25 per month not having those two features. That's $300 per year, folks! Also, the new phone is unlocked so when I go to the US for extended periods of time, I can put a US SIM card in the phone if I so choose.

This year, for our US phone usage, we bought an LG TracFone at BestBuy for $4.99. I then bought a $19.99  card with 90 days of service and 90 minutes of time. When I activated the card, I got an additional 60 days and 30 minutes, so for about $25US we had US phone with 5 months of service and 2 hours of talk time.

Long story short, I bought a new iPhone 6.

I also picked up this very cool zebra patterned case. Wouldn't that print make great fabric?