Hanging on to the day off

The last two weeks have been a blur. I told myself that I would treat the first month of my new job as manager at The Point, like one long tech week (a reference to my old life as a Stage Manager!). I’ve been working 13 hour days, 6 days a week (NOT kidding). I feel like things might be finally settling down. I finished my first store newsletter, I put together my first class & workshop schedule, and I’ve started to get my own systems in place.

The thing that has kept me sane through all the work has been the customers. I can’t believe how many I’ve grown close to in such a short time. It really is the knitting equivalent of Cheers. The regulars walk into a place where “everybody knows your name”. We even had one of our regulars come by with a bottle of Champagne to announce her engagement (sorry I can’t say who until she has time to tell all her friends and family . . . yes, the staff of the Point came after her family, but before some of her friends – LOVE that). We lowered the gates, locked up for the night, cracked out the glasses, and the staff and about a half a dozen regulars toasted the happy news. Despite all the craziness, the stress, the long hours, it really is a special place!

On Sunday I actually left my house to do something other than go to the store! David and went to the Atlantic Antic, welcomed the return of the prodigal daughter (my long lost pal Nell) and went to my friend Michael’s house for a little party. It was so nice to think about something other then work.

I’ll write more later, but now I need to spin and knit!

Goodbye theatre, Hello knitting

Goodbye Jersey Boys. Hello The Point. Stay tuned for tales of my first week training at the shop. I’ll be crazy jet lagged with no time to unpack 9 months of stuff, but I’ll be happy. If you live in New York, stop by and say hi!

Knitting through Italy pt. 2 (Cinque Terre)

Back in Italy . . . The next day it was time to set off to explore the rest of the towns. We started by hiking above Monterosso. It gave us a better view of all the tiered farming.

On the way to visit the Monastery on the hill Jenny’s bikini top stopped to pose by the Italian Rivera

Next stop, Vernazza. It was our favorite little town. The harbor was beautiful.

and there were lots of cats (what could be bad)

Here’s the view of the town from the goat path above.

After sitting on the beach for a good couple of hours, eating focaccia, gelatto, and sampling some wine, it was time to set off on our hike. It seemed like the natural thing to tackle the hardest hike after sitting in the sun, stuffing our faces and getting a little liquored up. It was a tough hike, it took about an hour and a half, and it was VERY climby. Here’s our last peek of the town before we left it behind to hike back to Monterosso

We were pretty damn hot and thirsty when we saw a mirage in the hillside. Right on the trail there was a GENIUS fresh lemonade stand. Right off the tree, just squeeze add water and sugar. At two Euros a glass the guy was racking it in, but what the hell

After a refreshing 4 Euros worth of lemonade, it was time to pause on the trail for some knitting

The next day it was time to tackle the second hardest trail from Corniglia to Vernazza. The first thing that greeted us on the trail was another cat.

There were several places on the trails with bowls and big tubs of cat food and signs asking hikers to fill the bowls to feed the unwanted cats. The hike was great, and the town (big surprise) was adorable. We wondered if the quaint old Italian woman hanging out colorful stripped sheets against the peach and yellow walls and the blue sky were hired by the office of tourism. “Okay, here come some Americans . . . hang out your colorful laundry – now”

After eating, resting, and browsing around town it was time to walk down the 33 flights of stairs to the Corniglia train station to head back to the beach. Ah, what a life.

We spent our last day in Cinque Terre exploring Riomaggiore, and Monarola. The day started looking like rain and turning gorgeous. Another colorful and beautiful harbor

led us towards a path to a quiet rocky beach. It was still early in the morning, so it was time to settle in for a little a.m. knitting

before exploring the town

Then we took the Via dell’ Amore to Monorola. It’s the easiest path (and therefore the most popular). All along the path there were stairs that led down to the water

At one end of the trail there is a statue of lovers covered with locks. It is a tradition to put the names of lovers and lock them around the statue

Here’s Manorola, a little town clinging to the hillside

After a fabulous dinner in Vernazza it was time for bed and to say goodbye to Cinque Terre.

Next stop . . . Venice

Dream jobs?

I’m typing here on another cold rainy San Francisco day. It’s my day off from Jersey Boys and as I sit here 3000 miles from home, I can’t help thinking about dream jobs. I do realize that for a lot of people (my niece Alana for one) I have a dream job, but everyone has different dreams. I saw my dream job on my TIVO last night. I was watching Shay Pendray’s Needle Arts. I usually end up fast forwarding through most of the needle point and embroidery stuff, but today was a great show. They went to the Koigu studio. We got to see them dye the yarn, make it into skeins, package it, the whole deal. It’s a family run biz, and if there was someplace like that within an hours drive of Brooklyn, I would be calling them right now for a job.

So here’s my question, well two questions really . . .

1) What do all you knitter/blog readers out there do for a living
2) If you could do anything, what WOULD you do for a living.

post your comments, I really want to know what everyone’s dream job would be.

When not daydreaming about playing with yarn all day as a job, I’ve been playing with yarn all day as a hobby. I’m still spinning up that yummy wool, alpaca, mohair I bought on e-bay. Here’s my first spool full:

Here’s my first plyed spindle full. I used the Andean plying technique.

I ordered a niddy noddy and a “Handy Andy” (a tool for Andean plying). I can’t wait till they arrive.

I’ve also been playing with different textured stitches to see how they felt. I’d like to design a felted purse with textured stitches. Here’s a swatch I made with a bobble and a popcorn stitch.

Prefelt:

And post felt:

I used some crappy hand spun so it felted REALLY fuzzy. The popcorn stitch completely flattened out, and the bobbles felted a weird shape. I’ll keep experimenting. I want to design something cool, but not too weird.

Back to my strange two-way sweater. I’m almost finished. That makes it a 7 day sweater. Not sure it was worth 7 days though. I’ll post some pics tomorrow.

WHAT?? . . . pattern gibberish

So I saw this sweater in last winter’s Vogue and I thought looked intriguing . You are supposed to be able to wear it two ways. One way the neck is a deep V and the bottom is a cropped band (or not so cropped the way I’m going to knit it), or turn it upside down and it’s a cowl neck. What? Can’t visualize it at all, so of course I had to knit it. Unfortunately they only picture it one way, so the magazine doesn’t help. Here’s the v neck way to wear it.

Has anyone out there knit this thing? The schematic and instructions made NO sense. I even cut out the shapes and tried folding them every which way and it still didn’t make sense. (The yellow tabs are post its, I didn’t have any tape in the apartment. One of the many joys of living away from home).

Then I remembered, Vogue is notorious for the need for pattern correction. So, I went on to the web page and found this correction, (pattern #2). So I tried my little arts and crafts project again, and I think I understand it.

Here’s my second pass at my little paper sweater (minus the cowl/waist band thingy)

I’m still not entirely sure it will work, but I’m giving it a shot. I’m knitting it up in Wool Ease Chunky, a superwash wool I got at Smileys. It’s a natural colored wool with flecks of brown, black and grey in it. I think I like it, but I can’t tell until it’s finished.

It’s either nice or looks like a sweater that went through the washing machine with black and grey kleenex. I don’t know, I kind of think it’s cool.

On Monday I went to another fab night of bar knitting at Chicks with Sticks. I wore my Tubey sweater so I could get a good picture of it.

Knitting and second chances

I’ve been experiencing a lot of knitting redemption lately. If only life were more like knitting. In knitting when you make a mistake, you can just rip back and start again. . . If a project goes horribly wrong you can frog the whole thing and start again. You can even revisit old projects and fix them using the tricks you’ve picked up since you originally knit them.

I’ve had a lot of knitting second chances lately. First there was the winter wonderland sweater that started looking like this

and after frogging and starting again ended up looking like this

Next there was the manly sweater. I knit if for David last winter. I wasn’t so great with finishing back then. Also, my gauge wasn’t so great back then. The arms, being the last thing I knit, were too big for the armholes. They always had a bit of a poof at the shoulder seam (NOT manly). On David’s last visit I took the sleeves out, re blocked the sweater, reattached the sleeves (in a non sucky way this time), and gathered some of the unavoidable fullness under the arm, so there’s no poof. Yeah!

Finally there’s my felted purse. I made it two years ago. I didn’t know about blocking to shape felted items. After finishing my felted tote and blocking it to make a nice flat bottom, I decided to take another look at my old felted purse. Here it is before, dried flat, with a sagging bottom, deeper and narrower then I’d like, with a strap that’s too short

First, I knit a strap extension, felted it, cut the old strap and reattached it to make a longer strap.

Then I soaked the whole bag and reshaped it to be wider, shorter and have a nice flat bottom.

I also reshaped the pouch to fit my ipod perfectly.

I also made a perfect little pouch for my cell phone.

Why can’t life be more like knitting. Have a fight with your spouse, rip it back until you didn’t say whatever stupid thing you said. Make a bad work decision, frog it, and start again. Eat a whole box of Kraft macaroni and cheese, resoak your butt and reshape it until its narrower and higher.

I might get a real life second chance soon. I can’t talk about it yet, because it’s not a done deal. When it is, I’ll let you know if I can make life imitate knitting!!

There was some real life second chances at Jersey Boys this week. Chris Jones, our Frankie Valli had a personal day on Wednesday. Our Frankie understudy went on for the first time on Wednesday night. He did great! All in all a fantastic first performance. There were some moments that be improved but there always are. We had no idea when he would get to go one again . . . until we got a call from Chris that his flight had been cancelled. That meant Rick was going on again. It’s so great for an understudy to get to do on twice in a row. He got a second chance and he was even better!!

In other knitting news – TUBEY IS FINISHED (the crowd goes wild). I love it! It took me forever to choose the colors for the stripes, and I’m so happy with what I chose. It’s 100% alpaca that I got it last year’s Smiley’s sale. I made it out of Filatura Lanarota Puno. At $3.00 a skein, that makes a $27.00 sweater. I love when I get a super cute garment for way less then I could buy it at a store. Here’s the colors from the pattern.

I only used 4 colors for the stripes instead of 5. I didn’t like the brown color, so I doubled the eggplant where the pattern called for the brown. I also got a pink instead of the purple and used a more neutral color for the yellow.

I have to wait until I go to work to take a good picture of the sweater, but here are some bad in the mirror photos I took.

Not having David my inhouse photographer is hard!!

Today is my day off which means, time for some spinning and cast on my next project, and of course my knitting group. More later.

Mountains and hand knits

David left Monday and it’s back to my same old routine. . . eight shows and 10 hours of rehearsal. Knit, work, knit, sleep, knit, work etc.

Last week David and I left right after the Sunday matinee to drive to Yosemite. We were staying in the lodge in the park. We got in a little before 9:00 pm and had a nice little dinner by a roaring fire in the lodge’s pub. The next day we got up for a fabulous day of hiking in nature’s beauty in hand knit sweaters. What could be better. The morning was crisp and cold, but it warmed up to high 60s by mid day. Here are just a few of the GORGEOUS pics from this winter wonderland.

I highly recommend going there in winter since at times you feel like you have the park all to your selves. There are deer everywhere. This is what greeted us first thing in the morning –

He was so still that David said “look at the fake deer”

We set off on our first morning walk and crossed a little bridge to this view

Here’s me & David wearing our hand knit sweaters (by my hand) in front of one of the falls

Later in the afternoon we took a drive to the famous tunnel view

On our way back to the lodge we came across over a dozen deer just grazing by the side of the road

We rounded out our first day of hiking with a sunset view of 1/2 dome

The next day was even brighter and more beautiful. Here’s our first hike of the day to Yosemite falls

In the world of knitting . . . I whipped up a little potato chip scarf out of some left over yarn. It’s pretty cute, although it’s a little shorter than I wanted.

I could have used much larger needles and it would have been longer and loftier. However it stays on your neck by just twisting in on itself, so you don’t have to wrap it.

I think I’ll make another one on much larger needles. For anyone out there in tvland (I know I know it’s the “blogesphere“, but I hate that word), who have never knit this scarf it’s the world’s easiest pattern:

row 1 – CO 90 stitches
row 2, 4, 6 – inc every stitch by knitting into front & back
row 3, 5, 7 – knit across
cast off

Tubey is coming along nicely. Here’s how it’s looking so far

More later. Gotta go to work. I’m very excited our Frankie understudy is going on for the first time tonight. I think he’s going to be fantastic. I’ll give you all a full report next time.

Of course, I have to take my computer to the mac doctor, so it may be a few days from now

Tubey and understudy fun

I’m sitting in the Mezzannine lobby with the Four Seasons doing a little dance brush up. I’m taking the opportunity to get in a quick blog post before my hubby arrives and I won’t be near the computer for the next ten days.

Today we had another put in rehearsal for the second wave of understudies for Jersey Boys . It was also a put in rehearsal for our new ASM to call the show. She did a great job. Especially considering it’s her first professional calling job. She calls the show tonight. It’s really kind of exciting being around to watch someones very first ever professional calling job. I’m sure she will be great.

The creative team was back in town casting for the next tour, so they were all here for the understudy put in. I will so miss our asst choreographer when he leaves. It’s been great having him around.

David gets in tonight and we are going to Yosemite on Sunday night through Tuesday afternoon. I can’t wait . . . look forward to lots of pictures being posted.

In knitting world, Tubey is coming along. I’m so tired of my sweater sleeves ending up either too short or too long, that I decided to keep both sleeve’s stitches live. I tried it on . . .

and one sleeve felt tighter then the other (of course). The way this is knit is with a crochet cast on, then knit one sleeve, remove the cast on and start knitting down the other side. I always loosen up as I knit. That’s why I prefer sweaters that are knit in the round. That way you avoid the, back is smaller then the front, sweater syndrome. I decided to block the sleeves to try to even out the width. I’m blocking them before I attach them to the body, because it will ultimately affect the length of the sleeve.

Here it is drying on my sad little make shift blocking board (ironing board). I must buy a blocking board one of these days.

A little slice of home

Last night the company of Legally Blonde invited the company of Jersey Boys to see their Sunday night show. They’re in San Francisco doing their pre Broadway tryout. It’s was the only performance on their schedule that didn’t overlap with ours, so we were so glad to be able to see the show. It’s in great shape and was a lot of fun. They’ve gone 13 days without a day off, so they had reserved a bunch of tables at the Clift bar to relax and unwind. It’s funny, back at home it was exactly the kind of night I’d usually pass on. I’d always rather go home and knit in front of my fireplace then hang out in a bar with a bunch of Broadway show folk. . . but, since I’m so homesick, it felt so nice to hang out with everyone from New York.

Between shows on Saturday I felted my bag. We only have a front loading washing machine at the Steinhart, so unless I wanted to cause a small flood, that would not work. Luckily they have top loading washing machines at the theatre. Here’s the finished product. It’s a little larger than I’d like, but it’s still pretty nice.

Here’s the unfelted & felted pics