knitting in the dark

Work has been more exciting than usual this past week.

We had a protest in front of the theatre the night of the first preview, but it’s almost always a mob scene in front of the theatre with this cast.

I’m not going into details because I don’t want search engines to pick up the celebrity names, but the production is actually quite good: a high quality revival of a mid-century American play led by a British director and design team. I would like to encourage everyone to see it, but I don’t get discounted tickets and many nights are already sold out.

On to the knitting front:

This pile of yarn is 16 balls of Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed, color Boheme. My grandmother purchased it for some unknown project and passed it all untouched to my mother. My mother let it sit in a closet for almost a year before I ‘borrowed’ it while visiting in April.

Originally I swatched it for a sweater for myself inspired by this Cobblestone Pullover, which I started and then ripped in August.

And I started the ever-popular DROPS 103-1 Jacket, which I realized I didn’t like so much in the lighter weight. RRRIP.

Flipping through the books on my knitting shelf I rediscovered Demi in Vintage Style… perfect! During my time off before tech rehearsals for this show I whipped out the body in about eight days.

And since tech started I’ve been working on the sleeves during my 45-minute-each-direction subway commute.

The first is finished and I am about a third of the way through the second. The pattern is easy to convert to knit in the round and the cable pattern is simple enough to work without the chart after a repeat or two. The pattern is written for an aran-weight tweed, but I am loving the results with DK as well.

I’m hoping to finish by Rhinebeck because I’m hoping to actually go this year. I have both days off - I just need to find a way to get up there.

And on a completely unrelated note - I have new shoes!

I’d never worn clogs before these… and they are SO comfortable. I wore them four days in a row after I got them! Now I’m off to find some solid sock yarn

This sad Pomotomus of mine has been sitting in the mending pile for more than a year… I don’t quite know when or how the hole appeared. I found it coming out of the laundry one day, but it’s all better now!

I think it was the Yarn Harlot that said something like: when a sock needs darning, she says ‘darn’ and tosses it - I think it was in At Knit’s End - does anyone have a copy handy to confirm this? My copy is in Seattle. But there’s no way I’ll be throwing these babies away; this particular pair only had about a dozen outings before this hole appeared. Darn!

I used up all the leftover Yarn Pirate from those Pomatomus to make some baby socks when one of my father’s employees had twins last spring (the other yarn is from my zebra stripe Jaywalkers):

so I found an odd partial ball of grey Koigu left over from my Endpaper Mitts and used that. Hopefully it will be a little more sturdy than the 50/50 merino/tencel… if the Koigu wears through I suppose I could break out something with some nylon content. I have one in grey that wouldn’t blend quite as well but would certainly last!

On a side note as a follow-up to my last post: my WEBS order arrived Tuesday this week… so it took about 7 business days from the time I placed the order until the box arrived at my apartment. And the colors are such a welcome change from the normal blues, greens, and grey found around here! Look at this retina-burning orange (Trekking 145):

And five skeins of this beautiful deep red Ultra Alpaca destined to be (yes, another) sweater for me this fall:

Now I just need to finish the sleeves of my current sweater project and the foot of my current sock-on-the-needles so I can use these lovelies!

I have a good feeling about this year. *knock on wood* If history is any indication of future performance: the “odd” ages seem to be better than the “evens” (especially if one ignores my 19th year). I had a bit of a tough 26… with the car accident and resulting depression and subsequent falling out of shape, but I’m back on track! My birthday was actually almost three weeks ago now (August 16). My parents bought me some nice curtains, but my mother also sent me a surprise gift:

my first ever (I know - blasphemous!) skein of Socks that Rock! It’s the lightweight version in color Lagoon and it will probably just sit here on my desk for a bit while I figure out what exactly to make. Yes, probably socks, but which pattern?

And as a gift to myself I ordered some dark red Ultra Alpaca from WEBS to make myself a Notre Dame de Grace - hopefully the pictures on Ravelry are close to color-accurate. Some bright orange Trekking XXL also fell into my cart when I realized it would put me over the “discountable” minimum and the skein would therefore cost less than $7. That’s probably destined to become socks for a friend whose favorite color is orange and is moving from Portland Oregon to Brisbane Australia in about two months.

Does shipping from WEBS take a long time? I’ve been spoiled by The Loopy Ewe’s nearly instant gratification online shopping.

I’m going away for the weekend again. This time to Cape Cod with some theatre friends. I was supposed to be loading-in to the theatre for Godspell on the Great White Way right now (there are still posters up all over Times Square and the LES) but that’s been put on hold, so I’m filling time and designing a few shows of my own instead of assisting for the next two months. If you know anyone who needs some good lighting…