My mother and I took a field trip to Best Buy last night. She got a DVD player for xmas, but it wasn’t compatible with our other equipment. Since I’m the resident A/V nerd, I had to help sort this out. She bought a combined dvd/vcr deck and a co-ax adapter. She also bought a case for my minidisc player, which has gotten scratched up sharing a pocket with my keys. Coincidentally, it matches the minidisc case (24 discs!) that my thoughtful cousin Chris gave me.
I set the dvd player up today, in about ten minutes. It was so, so simple! Of course, I had to rent a couple of dvds to test it out. So, I rented Finding Forrester, which turned out to be much better than I had expected. There’s a big difference between watching dvds on my computer and on tv. I’m used to sitting much closer than I ever get to the television.
I’m doing some pre-production work on my latest project. I am stage managing a play in one of the many tiny studio theaters in Chicago. Yes, I said t-h-e-a-t-e-r, not t-h-e-a-t-r-e. Email me if you’d like to have that argument.
The unknown delivery date of my CTH yarn had me increasingly impatient. Instantaneous delivery was not expected, but timely arrival is greatly appreciated. The UPS man brought me a package this afternoon from Handpaint Heaven, just as I’d sighed and decided that he wasn’t coming today. The yarns inside were quite a mélange: five skeins of green mohair with gold streaks through it (shades of my high school colors), totaling 500 meters, one big fat skein of Melange, a rayon/cotton/flax blend, in the Martha’s Vineyard colorway, and an odd little skein that seems to have been thrown in just to bring the lot up to weight. I guess that I’ll make some sort of shell out of the mohair, though it isn’t calling my name. The novelty yarn clearly wants to be a wide, long scarf with lots of fringe for a friend. Or perhaps for me.

Today is a red letter day. When I opened the front door to bring in the mail, threepadded envelopes fell in on me, all of them yarn that I'd sent away for! I'm trying to stave off a bad case of startitis, but the giant red ball of Brown Sheep burly spun is irresistable. Maybe I'll take it to stitchnbitch tomorrow. So, my mailman brought me in his little bag: big, bulky wool, gorgeous hand-dyed shaefer yarn, and a skein of cherry tree hill green mountain madness. I'm a sucker for blues and greens, and the name reminded me of the People's Republic of Vermont, of which I am oddly fond. So, I'll be working my wrist and elbow into a twinge winding all of my new acquisitions into balls. Why don't the manufacturers package the yarn in a ready-to-use fashion? Sometimes it's nice to wind the ball so that you can see all of the color variations in a skein, like Kureyon, but I'm not too interested in seeing 123 yds of uniform color. Just a wee complaint.

I've been on a bit of a yarn binge lately. It can safely be said that I might not go into a LYS for the rest of the year and be well supplied. I bought some yarn from ebay, which can be hit or miss, as past experiences have proven. The last time I did that, the lovely chestnut rowan yarn turned out to be 1970s burnt orange. A really big cone of it that collected dust on my dresser until my mom decided that she could make a shawl out of it. I'll reserve the right to make comment on that until the garment is actually made. Right-- so I purchased a skein of Shaefer hand-dyed wool, which I have used before, as well as a skein of Cherry Tree Hill supersock. Of course, people tried to outbid me at the last minute and drove the price up after it had been at a nice, low level for days. Oh well. It was still below retail. Yesterday, my mother and I went to the LYS in Orland Park, where four skeins of Araucania nature wool joined my collection. It's a hand-dyed wool made in Chile, with lovely natural color variations within the generous skeins. I'm thinking of making a New Wave Scarf (a ChicKnits pattern available for purchase from that website) for a distant friend.
I am currently working on a pair of socks in Bartlett wool, a very hardy yarn made with the last mule spinner in North America. The socks will be very warm when they are finished, but that may be a few days. I decided to do a color block for the heel and ended up with many, many tails to weave in. Alas, I must repeat that mistake for the second sock. Outsmarted myself again.
I went through my WIP basket and found projects that I knew I had no intention of finishing. So I made a big, big step and threw them away. When I came back from my aunt's house, I found that my mom had pulled these rejects out of the trash and unravelled the yarn. She pulled out the scratchiest of the lot, of course. Laughter is the best response to this type of behavior.
In other news, I've finally got my printer up and working, in time for resume season. Now is the time that all of the summer theatres advertise their positions, so my little Epson will get a good workout in the next few months. I just can't wait to start wasting paper!

Yet again, I've let weeks go by without updating my blog once. Now I understand why no one ever links to me on their knitting pages.
I've come down off the Nutcracker tour, which was largely to blame for my lack of updates---but not lack of material. My web activities were largely restricted to checking my email off of my cell phone. Provided that my cell worked there, which it doesn't in half of New England. Great "national" plan.
My phone died on xmas day. I'm very lucky that it held on until I got home. My dependence on my cell phone while away is almost 100%. Also, the phone was still under warranty, so my service provider overnighted me a new handset. One of my friends recently lost his cell phone on the El and I gave him much crap about not having all his numbers written down elsewhere. I was quite smug about having mine in my palm pilot. So, I was really setting myself up for the nasty discovery that I did not in fact have them all there. All but a few numbers have been recovered through other means, some no longer needed. Only one is totally lost.
I can breathe easier now that the packages that I mailed to myself have arrived. A surprisingly older gentleman from Fed Ex delivered the boxes two days after xmas. I was a bit nervous, since they were to have been delivered the day before and not showing any progress on the obsessive-compulsive fed ex tracking service. Then they arrived, unbroken, and were quickly opened to show my mother all of the good things that I gathered in my journeys.
A short list:
* two skeins of rowan 4 ply to make color block socks
* two skeins of jamieson's yarn for same purpose, from a wonderful store in lenox, mass.
* two skeins of funky variegated stahl yarn that were a gift from karen, now being made up in wonderful double cable pattern socks
* a skein of blueberry colored bartlett yarn, purchased in new hampshire, where i also went on a crazy search to find aveda products for my pig-pen hair. turned out they were available across the street from our motel.
* two skeins of wool/tencel blend sock yarn from Green Mountain Spinnery, the only redeeming feature of Putney, Vt. Visit them online at Green Mtn Spinnery
* Four skeins, various colors, of Mountain Mohair bought from the orphans basket at the spinnery.
* the remnants of my ball of Schaefer hand-dye, used to make the hat for Matt. there may or may not be enough there for another hat. perhaps for someone with a small head.

My mother gathered all of my projects in progress into a lined basket while I was away. I have many, but still the new projects call strongly to me to start them. I finally finished the faux-fairisle socks that I began months ago. I think they'll look snazzy with my birkis.
Works in progress (that I'll admit to):
* lilac rowan script bag. needs to be blocked, lined, and finished.
* red cherry tree hill spiral rib socks. not holding breath on 0 gauge knitting approching completion in foreseeable future.
* charcoal mohair lined socks. still haven't reached the heel on the first sock.
* gedifra new age shell. lost the pattern, still hoping that it will turn up.
* brown miniringel socks. promising start on first sock, worked plain. almost to heel.
* currently working: cabled sock. I enjoy the challenge, since I haven't done cables since the ugly palm pilot cover that I made. Big push to actually make socks, as it is cold and I'm tired of getting cracks in my feet.

I'm also making a few late xmas presents for folks I've yet to see. Some knit, some sound things. It's nice to have a little extension!

Live Freaked or Die
I'm sitting in a motel room in the great state of New Hampshire. It seems to be populated by yankees straight out of central casting, all of them kind of eccentric. Or more than kind of. The clerk at the motel told us a really pointless story about Handel's Messiah (which he repeatedly referred to as "Handel's The Messiah"). He is now referred to as Norman amongst the crew.
My injuries have multiplied, but are all on the mend. It remains to be seen whether or not the cut on the palm of my hand will scar. It's pink and shiny now. The bruise on my chest where Matt hit me with a pipe is a nice ripe yellow, and the accompanying abrasion matches my hand. I got a sliver in my middle finger yesterday ( ? days of the week no longer have meaning) off of one of the pipes at the theater. It hurt, and I couldn't pull it out, so I had to slice it out carefully. I never realized how much I used my middle finger, other than for the obvious, until it was encumbered by a big old bandaid. I took it off today so that I could knit, and it looks fine.
I finished two pending projects during the performances tonight (not to be named, as they will soon be presents). It was very gratifying. The mixing console was in the back of the house again, which I appreciated greatly. The board is a kid-magnet, but a lot of women also wanted to talk to me about my knitting. I went to the LYS here, which was an old lady type knitting store, but found wonderful heathered yarn from Maine there. I've also got a hat planned for one of the dancers, out of Noro Kureyon. He has a large head.
About the mixing console---the show has never sounded so good. And probably won't again. We use our rig at the next theatre, which should sound especially bad after this system. The ballet really should invest in an equalizer. And admit that you cannot use only two speakers for the house. The set up here almost sounded like an orchestra (thanks to fine equalization on the part of the local sounhd person and kicking subs), with the exception of the tape hiss during the sugar solo. It's really strange to hear tape hiss on a cd.
Karen and I went to the Shoetorium during lunch today. She was in search of a pair of Red Wings and I was drawn in by the name. The manager, who helped us, was incredibly knowledgeable about feet and the proper fitting of shoes. I finally bought a pair of Birki super clogs, which were pretty cheap since New Hampshire has no sales tax. I've wanted a pair of super clogs since my freshman year of college. There's something very fun about plastic shoes, although I went with a sensible navy.

More adventures in touring. The stage manager quit last week, between the matinee and evening performances. He is not missed. Still, we’re soon to be two persons short on the crew, with many dates left in our short tour. Note that I say persons rather than men; the artistic director/producer of the tour made a point of telling the crew that she thought the production manager should have hired more men. What a limited, sexist view of the world---and very out of step with modern stagecraft. Most of the technicians that I know are women.
Today, we had a few hours off between the lecture/demonstration (which we were initially told that we weren’t required to work) and the show call, during which the master electrician and I headed to Lenox to pay another visit to Colorful Threads. It was one of the quickest trips to the yarn store that I’ve ever made. Karen knew exactly what she wanted. She’s a very organized person. I took a little more time, but ultimately found a beautiful skein of hand-dye in shades of orange and pink, as well as a couple of skeins of sock yarn. When I’ll get to make them up, I have no idea, but I always enjoy finding yarn on the road.
Someone stole Matt's ugly hat tonight at the theatre, which is pretty amusing. Still, it's quite cold here in the industrial northeast, so I told him that he can have the hat that I knit in Burlington. That also means that I must now make or purchase a different gift for the person for whom the hat was intended.