To the few people who actually read this blog, I apologize. I've been living my life instead of writing about it. It wasn't for lack of material, certainly, but sometimes it is better to wait until things are over to write about them.

I spent the last few months working on one of my dream shows. Everyone working in theatre has a list of shows they'd like to do, but rarely have the privilege of working on one of them. Back in August, I ticked the first one of my list: Sunday in the Park with George, by Stephen Sondheim. I adore Sondheim, but especially that show. It has so much to say about art, creation, and relationships. If you're not familiar, ask a theatre person. They will respond with enthusiasm.

It was my first time mixing Sondheim, and it was fucking difficult. Until about halfway through the run, I had to read fifty pages of piano score in the dark to hit all my marks in one of the numbers. I hadn't read a score since high school. Art isn't easy, to quote the show, but all that hard work was exhilarating. Ideally, mixing should always be like that, since it requires using both sides of the brain, but some shows are just work. Sunday rarely felt like work (except for matinees, which I find unnatural), and the end result was so, so beautiful.

Right on the heels of Sunday, I went into tech on another show. It was my first time designing a show (instead of engineering or associate designing) in a very long time. There are some very interesting differences between engineering and designing. Designers have to think about the show much more closely, but they also get to leave the production when it opens. That is an itch I get on some productions when engineering, though I enjoy mixing shows too. I'd like to design more; I have a few new tricks up my sleeve. This was my first design using QLab. I'd run shows with it before, but never programmed in it. SFX seems more popular, perhaps since it will run on a Windows platform. I vastly prefer QLab now, even the stripped down free version. How far we've come from the days when changes in the design required a trip back to the studio!

On the knitting front, I have finished two cardigans in Peace Fleece, started and abandoned a couple of accessory projects, and have a polo shirt for my grandmother (who does not use the internet and has no great affection for computers) half finished. The first Peace Fleece sweater is an adaptation of the popular Zephyr Knits pattern, 28thirty. The pattern is for a cropped jacket, but as a short person, I do not do cropped anything. I extended it to a cozy, ass-covering length. Upon the advice of another knitter, I also re-engineered the sleeves, which as written would accommodate the Hulk's biceps. It quickly became my favorite sweater. The rustic Peace Fleece is the perfect weight for autumn, making a very cozy fabric. I am trying to choose garments that are more sophisticated and less cozy (well, less cozy-looking), but this cardigan is a win in both categories. One of these days, I may even sew on its buttons.

The second Peace Fleece cardigan is their Everyday Cardigan, in a lovely light aqua tweed. This is the second time I've knit this pattern. It was the first cardigan I ever knit, which lasted many years until it was loved to death. Also, styles have changed a bit since the turn of the century, and its short length left me tugging at its hem absently. Everyday Cardigan 2.0 is longer. It was curious making two Peace Fleece projects back to back. The yarn is a hard-wearing wool, which is to say, a little scratchy to work with. Some colors are scratchier than others. The pink that I used for the adapted 28thirty has a great hand and didn't need to be softened up in the blocking process. Maybe because it came from a store of yarn in which chipmunks made a nest while the Peace Fleecers were in Russia for the summer. The aqua tweed was untouched by rodent pals and a bit rougher. I've no doubt it will relax a bit in its initial bath, allowing the mohair content to bloom.

I've decided to take a break from Peace Fleece for a while, though I have enough stashed for another two cardigans. I'd like to make things that cannot be described as serviceable or hardy. So, I dipped into my stash again and pulled out some Dream in Color Classy that I bought at a seconds sale a few years back. I am knitting Hannah Fettig's Effortless Cardigan, which I suspect will be stylish and cozy. For those of you who can't access the Ravelry link (sorry), it's a top down raglan cardigan that can be worn crossed, a la Diane von Furstenburg, or left open in a devil-may-car Eileen Fisher fashion. Readers, if I had the cash, I would live in Eileen Fisher. The yarn is veil dyed in shades of grey, so I imagine the finished sweater will be worn to the theatre a lot. I've just put all the sleeve stitches onto holders--always a relief when knitting from the top down. Still, those rows of plain old stockinette are very long.

I've been working for weeks on a sweater knit at 5 1/2 stitches to the inch. That's not super tiny, but I usually knit worsted weight sweaters more suitable to my wintry climate. That gauge in a sweater, especially in plain stockinette in the round, seems torturous and dull. When I got up this morning, I thought, I'm going to finish that motherfucking sweater today. And I did. It has no hanger appeal, despite having a charming inset lace panel at the neckline. Until I picked up a mind-numbing number of stitches around the neckline, it gaped in a most unpromising manner. And it looked like I was knitting a sack. It did not inspire me to keep at it, especially with my Singer calling my name from the dining room table. Sewing! You don't have to make the fabric when you sew! And you get to use gadgets! What's not to love?

Aside from weaving in a few ends and blocking, the sweater is done. It actually looks cute on, which was a big relief. If it turned out to be ugly or unflattering, I probably would have had a meltdown.  I've got another boring stockinette WIP to whip into shape. I've been neglecting it because the yarn was dyed with real indigo, which loves to transfer to my hands and anything I touch, like some kind of smurf herpes. That sweater has to be knit monogamously, which is not my modus operandi. I like to bounce back and forth between a couple things, so that I am less likely to get bored. Usually, I have a pair of socks going, but that didn't seem like enough contrast in gauge to provide relief from the small gauge sweater. How people knit sweaters out of sock yarn, I do not know.

Here I am, after a two month absence. And really, I'm typing to avoid the temptation of working on my current project, a flat panel v-neck tank with ribbed sides in Allhemp6. Hemp is a wondrous fiber, but it also really hurts my hands to knit with it for long periods. I like to knit for long periods and want to get that tank done in time to wear it this year, so that is a bit of a problem. The yarn is pretty stiff and a little splitty, which made my cabled cast-on a real headache. After twice (!) making accident mobius strips after using a long tail cast-on, I decided to take the time and extra effort not to fuck it up a third time. The temptation to throw it in the corner in disgust was great, except I'm trying to keep my house fairly neat (or at least not a ridiculous mess, it's all relative).
This is my second recent project in hemp. The first was a shawl made out of Hempathy, which is a hemp blend. The other fibers and its ply structure make it a lot easier to work with than the 100% hemp on my needles now. It might have spoiled regular hemp for me. Allhemp6 is supposed to be a DK weight yarn, but I cannot imagine knitting it such a tight gauge. I'm knitting it at 4.75 stitches to the inch, with no complaints about the look of the fabric. Still, it will probably be a while before I break out the rest of the hemp in my stash.

In other news, I recently discovered that my cat is an excellent birder. Not by catching a bird, thank god, but through his tenacious attack on houseflies. Songbirds, you are lucky that Winston is not allowed outside, or you'd have to flee for your lives! A month or so ago, I had the Orkin man out to attack my carpenter ant problem. They were quite active in my house, thanks to the renovation work. I suspect the Orkin treatment also killed my resident spider population. Spiders are not my favorite houseguest, but they keep the fly population in check. Now, there is only a twelve pound tabby who achieves surprising height and hang time in his jumps. He's very accurate too. Winston is a terrible mouser (never actually killing the mouse), so it's good to see that he has some hunting skills. I may still have to get some flypaper, though.

Magic House Shit

We've been very busy these last few weeks. The bathroom is a bathroom again, all the rooms have new flooring, and the kitchen is basically finished.
The bathroom may be my favorite room in the house. While the walls were down, the guys put in paper faced insulation, so there isn't any noise transmitted. The toilet was rebuilt, so that it no longer aggravates me by running forever after flushing. There's also a new, non-grody medicine cabinet set into the wall, soon to be joined by another storage cabinet over the john. Lewis had a stroke of genius and used the natural stone, yellow '60s California Casual subway tiles I bought last year at ReStore (for a dollar a piece!) as the border with a neutral wall tile. We'd planned to use it on the backsplash in the kitchen, but it's shown to much better of effect in bathroom.

You might recall that we had to take the walls down to remove the old tub. Well, the headache was totally worth it, since we replaced it with a soaking tub and European shower head. It's absolutely amazing. The slope of the tub walls is just perfect for reclining lazily. I've noticed that the plastic tub doesn't hold heat as well as the old cast iron one, but it also isn't so goddamn cold when you first get in. Maybe we should have slid some insulation in between its walls, but there wasn't any provision for doing so.

The bathroom balances out the other remodeling heartbreaks. I decided the ceiling fan in the kitchen had to go. When Lewis took it down, we discovered that the reason the fan has rocked and looked like it might fly off and guillotine us all was that it was not hanging from a rafter after all. And the reason that one of the sockets kept burning through light bulbs turned out to be a major wiring problem, not a short in the fixture as previously assumed. A couple of years ago, my aunt Maria found an awesome local electrician who is now rewiring the entire house. I knew the wiring was bad enough that I didn't want to replace any more switches or outlets, but I didn't understand the scope of the shittiness. The electrician seemed genuinely surprised that a couple of my outlets worked. Soon, all of my outlets will be grounded, the light fixtures replaced, and flickering gone.

The biggest change in the house has been the flooring. Lewis laid real ceramic tile in the kitchen and bathroom, replacing execrable vinyl flooring. The dander and allergy fortress/carpet was torn up. The original tile lurked underneath, and it was a bitch to tear up. All of the houses in my area were built in a hurry in the 1950s on the cheap, so the tile was a real gem: black and white acetate tile that suggested an orthodontist's office or chiropractor. To say that I am glad that it is gone is an understatement. Removing it was very labor intensive, involving a long handled floor scraper that Lewis tells me was designed for breaking ice off of sidewalks, swearing, and buckets of sweat.

Further complicating matters is this:

Lewis went home for a couple of days and came back with this cast and his husband Ricardo to make up for his limited mobility. This is a good injury for a knitter, but a nightmare for a contractor. The doctors refused to give him a walking cast, which is a major drag. We thought it was just a break in his foot, but it turns out that his ankle, which has felt "funny" is also broken. He's talking about a "spider cast" right now and drawing lines in soapstone on his black fiberglass cast where he'd like to vent it. He has some really great power tools, so it might happen.

If you peer closely at that photo, you might notice the new floor. It's a light oak laminate from IKEA, a total steal at $1.25 a square foot. It's so much nicer than the old flooring and it makes my bright green living room look less jarring. The realtor who walked through a few weeks ago called the color "trouble", but I find it restful and clarifying, like clary sage. The lighter floor makes a huge difference in the look and feel of the house.

I look forward to being able to set up my new den. The old one was a den of iniquity with lots of hand me down furniture, too many bookcases, and a clusterfuck of cables. The new den will be an empowered space for creation, with lots of storage for yarn, a red desk, art on the wall, and an extremely comfortable futon. I'm sitting on the newest addition to the den now, a booger green yoga ball (pictured above) that I picked up for $10 to use as a chair. My Uncle Roy has been using one as his desk chair for ages. Anything to quit slumping in front of the computer! I do not want a dowager's hump.

My House and its Magical Powers for Shit

Please note: for the foreseeable future, this blog will feature renovation related content. Knitting just isn't isn't happening in the middle of this mess.


It all began when I couldn't flush the toilet. The tank would take so long to fill, that it was only possible to flush once, maybe twice a day. A temporary and depressing solution, throwing buckets of water down the toilet to force it to flush, was used until I realized that I essentially had an indoor outhouse. One day, I called my good friend Lewis in tears over the state of the bathroom. He agreed to help. I don't think he knew what he was getting himself into then, or he might not have volunteered so quickly. What started as a two hour plumbing fix grew in scope to include the entire house.
As most of you already know, my esteemed grandparents died last summer. For the first six months, I felt unmoored. Then, I resolved to get the fuck out of this place. It doesn't make sense to stay anymore, when its biggest attraction was being able to walk to their house. Far, far away it is. And that means selling the house. And unless it was going to be sold as a gut rehab, work would have to be done. There isn't a huge market for houses with a disreputable air.

At the outset of this undertaking, we planned the following improvements:

• complete remodel of the bathroom
• new floor in the kitchen
• laminate flooring throughout

About halfway through, this has telescoped into:

• moving a wall
• new cabinets, countertop, and sink in the kitchen
• paint, paint everywhere
• more plumbing than can be discussed in mixed company
• mysterious plans for the laundry room that are currently unknown to me
• walling over a door
• replacing all the windows
• the clerks at Home Depot not only recognizing me, but asking if we liked the movie we'd discussed renting a few days before (Pineapple Express. Awesome.)