It’s been a long haul, but the Kalamazoo Civic Theatre production of The Women, by Carol Boothe Luce is finally over. It’s amazing how strenuous it was on everyone, particularly considering how little stage time most of us actually had. In a cast with 40 women, it’s amazing that we all fit into two-and-a-half hours.

Of course, today I worked it off with a little bit of indulgent knitting. Don’t judge me…but I started the Wing of the Moth shawl.

I am using Rowan Kidsilk Haze in color 578. I photographed it on my skirt for contrast, but now I am quite motivated to wear them together.

And speaking of wearing things, here is the Venezia Pullover in use:

Please excuse my obvious exhaustion in the photo. Also, my stomach usually doesn’t show when I wear it. We went to Saffron for dinner on Friday as a belated birthday “event” for me, which is what you see in the background.
The pattern can be found in the Winter 2006 issue of Interweave Knits. I am too lazy to look up the measurement, but I made the smallest size. I ended up not needing all the skeins for three different colours. For the body colors I assume that I did not need them because my gauge was slightly smaller than what is called for, but I think the quantity for the edging color was overestimated. It called for three, and I scarcely needed two. She used such good colors in the original pattern that I could not bring myself to mess with them.

Here is a closeup of the spiral pattern on my sock cuffs:

It’s a little difficult to see in the photo because of the pooling, but it’s actually very satisfying.

The weather was fantastic yesterday, so I spend a lot of it lying out on the quad with the beautiful Nikki.

I have a lovely right-side sunburn to prove it, too. We won’t talk about the fact that sunburn is all I really accomplished, and the world will (hopefully) stay bright and sunny.

Alright, so I am stalling. Severely. I know that I promised 30s pictures a few weeks ago, but it’s really rather embarrassing to actually post them. I’m going to do it anyway, but I strictly forbid anyone to like to them or use them for absolutely anything. Family, THIS. MEANS. YOU. Got it?

Alright. I trust you.

Isn’t that wig just god awful? This is my saleswoman outfit. My bow was tied every night by the beautiful Donna.

Evening wear. Please meet my fur, his name is “Frederick”. Despite my fiber obsession, I have never liked to touch fur. My problem has never been specifically related to the theory of fur, but in my memory it has always given me a headache. It’s not the smell, it’s (mostly) not that it’s something’s skin, it’s the texture. I’ll wear the fur over having my nails filed though…

A clearer image of the dress. I like the detailing in the middle, although it’s still not that visible here.

Alright, I did it. Remember, these images go nowhere.

You’d think I’d stop acting like I’m three…

I spent most of today doing this:

Tadaa!!

Unfortunately, I do have a minor adjustment to make on the sleevecaps/neckline. It was completely my fault. I did not have the pattern with me. However, it is totally fixable. I also need to wash it and block it, but that is the easy part.

Now, I have some yarn-related things to disclose. Cait made me socks!!

Even though she hates purple. She put herself through two whole purple-infested malabrigo socks, all for me. I am humbled. (I’ll take a close-up of the lovely diagonal-purl lines on the cuffs.)

She is also a very bad person. She bought me yarn. Do you know how guilty I feel when people give me things?? SOCK YARN. That is all I have to say.*

In all fairness, I should rat myself out. I can’t just blame Cait, right?

More yarn. I am planning to use it for the Wing of the Moth shawl, once I get another few projects out of the way. I am too lazy to link to it right now, but if you do a google search you should it. Normally I would not have chosen this color, but I have an unexplained attachment to it. It called to me. It *wanted* to be moth. I don’t argue with yarn-fate.

Thirties pictures soon, along with a funny story (or two) involving my roommate…

*That would mean a lot more to you if you saw my current stash of sock yarn. It’s enough to shame an elephant or three.

How many of you say this on a daily basis??

I say it all the time. Yet if you were to walk into my dorm room and look around…you would see how little sense it makes for me to say that. I just want everything.

Sometimes it’s because of a particular project that I want to make, and sometimes it’s because of a particular yarn. It is never the same.

I have been trying to use up my yarn. I keep telling myself that I cannot start something new until I finish something old. No new socks/sock yarn until I finish three old socks/skeins. No new sweaters until…well…we won’t talk about that one.

I honestly have no idea how this happens, but somehow the yarn seems to reach a new level of catastrophe by the day. Sometimes it hits me when I don’t have room to work on my desk anymore, or when I trip over a stray portion on my out of the room, or when I open a drawer to put away clean laundry and find that it is already overflowing with…you guessed it. Yarn.

The famous example is this:

It’s fair, right? It is a surface, it is infrequently used (in relation to…say..my bed, desk, sink, or chair). It keeps it off the floor, and it looks tidier than the alternative.

The desk. To be fair, This is only a small portion of the desk and I have already moved some of the yarn off.

So why, why am I compelled to do this sort of damage?

In all honesty, it happened the other week when we had to leave the Yarn Harlot event. Two skeins. That is also where the amber-y sock color was obtained.

The point is, I always want more yet I never manage to use what I’ve got.

*What comes next is also part of the inevitable. Just when I thought I was done, Rob showed up with this:

“Mooouse, finish my mitten!!”

I am such a pushover.

Just some pictures to tide you over.

April’s calendar page looks like this:

April’s mitten (uuh…) looks like this:

I have since started the second one.

As of this morning at 11, I had this much of a pair of socks finished.

I finished the socks around 5, but failed to take a picture.

I am taking a rock climbing PE class, and it is pretty fanastic. Unfortunately, this week’s directing assignment is not so fantastic. It is nearly impossible to find people who are free and can meet me when I am also free. We’re all praying for an extension, although it is extremely unlikely that we’ll get one. I am about to go into another busy weekend of performances, although I have hardly recovered from the first.

More soon!

I realize that I have been conspicuously absent lately. In fact, I’ve probably been posting more about how I’m not here than about things that are actually important.

Like knitting.

I have finished the first sleeve of the Venezia Pullover, and have started the second. The malabrigo laceweight scarf is also finished, although it has not been washed or blocked yet. (Yeah, you try it in a dorm room.)

I have started a mitten to replace the scarf as a throw-about project, but I’d rather not talk about my sock progress at the moment. Move along.

(Anyway, Emily the Yarn Duck has already been on my case about that one.)

Tonight is the invited dress rehearsal of The Women, at the Kalamazoo Civic theatre. Tomorrow is the opening performance. This means that instead of taking the time to post lately, I have been scuffling around in a basement in 2″ heels (ick) looking like a 30s woman. I never quite realize how funny that is until I refer to it objectively…

I’ll try to put some pictures up tonight or tomorrow, in between finishing everything for my classes and hiding my painted fingernails from the masses.*

They’re bright red. It is humiliating.

Go knit something, because I can’t!!

*I meant pictures of the knitting, but upon The Sneak’s request I’ll try for some 30s pictures too.

I can hardly keep up with anything right now.  Sometimes it’s the workload, and at other times…it’s…well.

I just fell asleep in the library.  I think that really explains it all.  Why clutter up the issue with unnecessary words?  It’s cold out, I am somewhat sleep deprived, and those chairs are warm and squishy.  It’s a crazy life.

The next two weeks will be particularly busy for me, so I’ll do my best to keep up with everything as I go.

On Saturday afternoon, Cait and I drove home for the Yarn Harlot event on Sunday. I intended to do homework for the rest of the night, but after about thirty pages I-of course-fell over on the couch and spent the next 2.5 hours illegally napping. So much for that one. After waking up, I was too fuzzy and off-schedule to get much else done without a break.

So, I designed a sweater or five. This is a rough sketch of Cait’s sweater, being made from Malabrigo laceweight on size 5 needles. She is using the same colourway as my scarf.

I lazed about, knit a bit, then went to bed with the intention of getting up at 9:30 to do the work I was obviously not going to get done.

Sunday morning. 11:00 AM.

“I think I’ll just laze about until my alarm goes off. Wait..wait. Wait a second…”

Rule #1: Avoid using a cell phone as an alarm as often as possible.

Rule #2: ALWAYS bring your cell phone charger home with you. Period. Absolutely no exceptions.

Suddenly, I just had time to tear the house apart in search of a cell phone charger-ANY cell phone charger!!! Pleeease????? I needed to call at least people to coordinate Yarn Harlot timing!! Oh, no!! I found once charger, which did not work. Finally, I sat in the car to charge my phone and made calls from the driver’s seat. Then I packed, and was ready just in time to leave.

On the left…

On the right…

It was so good to see so many knitters at one time. Also, we ran into people that we met last time! It was quite fantastic. Is anyone still doubting that we are a community? A subculture? A cult?

We saw Riin, Kelli, and Diane,

Dana,

Rachel H. and Rams,

And this lovely lady whose name I failed to write down. And seeing as my brain is made of sand, I cannot remember it for my life. Apologies.

And now comes the tragedy…The Harlot got stuck in Chicago!! She did not arrive in Ann Arbor until 5. We had to leave for Kalamazoo by 4:30, so we sadly departed to give over our seats. Did I mention how many knitters were there? Yeah. I hope the words “overflow room” mean something to you, because it was enough to strike terror into our hearts (twice) and convince us to show up at noon (when the library opens) for the 2:00 event. (Twice.)

It was unfortunate. It was depressing. Devastating, even. Yet somehow, getting to see all those who share our ways took away the pain of separation. Of course I wanted to see the Guld sweater, of course I wanted to laugh until my head ached and I started to cry, and I certainly wanted to wait in an unbelievable line to talk to the Harlot and get my book signed. Despite missing it all, it was still good.

I propose that we begin organizing conventions on a monthly basis.

So, back to Kalamazoo with us.

The first Sneak sock is nearly finished:

The scarf is growing slowly but steadily:

And the first sleeve of the Venezia Pullover is progressing:

It is now about three inches longer than the picture shows. I intend to finish both sleeves by sometime next week and get some wear out of this sweater before the heat hits!

So, with my NEW BAG, I’m off to “hit the books”.

Oh, just watch me. I just might mean that statement literally today…