Bohemian Bluestocking

It can be soooo nice to see your stuff on stage. And this week it's even doubly nice, since it's a knitted item on stage. I knitted a wig for a current show at Shakespeare & Co, the regional theater I work at. And here are the pictures:(courtesy of their website/Kevin Sprague/Studio Two) And it actually looks like a wig, though slightly flat on top, the curls were a little tight to get into that small circumference. I am pleased, and as soon as I can get some close-up construction photos, I'll post those.

I want to like this pattern. Really. Really I do. For the most part, I like Knitty stuff. But this one is harder to love. There are a couple of things that I can't call quite knitter-ly.

1. The whole thumb thing. A gusset is not that hard to figure out. Come on, people! When I made these, finally, it went right in the purl "ditch."
2. That whole picot edge thing doesn't work. You want the picot eyelet to line up with the purl stitches, which is doesn't. But it does on mine....
3. And the stubby little thumb looks stubby. If there is a gusset, the thumb doesn't look stubby. End of story.

So here is my version of Fetching, looking much more fetching, I think. Though the photo is not great, I admit.

At long last, there are some photos. And a tale of three mittens. Three pairs of mittens. There are the Berkshire Mittens: They have a 3-color twisted cast-on, and up to 3 colors carried across the inside. The thumbs are a standard interior gussett, different patterns on both sides, and they have a flat grafted top. One mitten has the month/year on the cuff, the other the location and a little diamond medallion. 

Tawashi Swag is great. RhondaB is great. Chocolate is great. Caffiene is great. Ravelry is great. This is what I got: 2 citrus slice tawashi, a very kawaii matchbook of fashion-y post-it notes, and some japanese candy-chocolate trees. Yipee!

Tawashi are the very cute little Japanese scrubbies -- knitted with anti-bacterial yarns (there are two sites on Etsy, here and there,  where you can find them. There are lots(!) of pattern books out there, mostly crochet, but a few knitted ones as well. 

The end result is I have gone tawashi-crazy. All orphaned plant-based yarns in the stash are being knit up into tawashi. I have joined Tawashi-Town at Ravelry. I have done a Tawashi Swap (thanks RhondaB in Seattle for the swag!) The finished tawashi have started to pile up (there's a good sized plastic bin full). I talk about it my knitting group. I talk about them at my LYS's.

I knit, eat, sleep Tawashi.

I have started to think about designing them. I'll keep you posted as to ideas.

I keep telling myself that if I have an happy outlook the day won't look so bad. But it still does. You know those late winter days when it dusk ALL DAY LONG!? I got some knitting done though, 3 cotton scrubbies and 2 dishcloths. A friend of mine makes this wonderful olive oil/cocoa butter soap, so I think a trade is in order next tiime I see here. This winter is just drying up my skin, so much that I want scrape if off and start over. 

I made a list of the unfinished projects in the 2+ "sewing" laundry baskets and 2 "knitting" baskets. And this is the plan. It ALL gets done by mid-April. It has to get done. I'm unemployed, except for some pieces of stitching work, so there is NO EXCUSE this time around (I made this promise to myself last late winter, and very little came of it.) I start back at Shakes & Co at the end of April, so there's the deadline. And it's not insurmountable, either. Very manageable, in fact. And the other basket, of completed objects, is growing big enough that it might spill over into 2 baskets, which would mean I may actually be close to being down to 1+ basket of sewing projects. Which would warrant of real cry of "whoopi!"

I have joined Ravelry, which I have to say -- SO COOL -- that's it become very addictive. And i've realized that I've finished of almost finished 17 projects since the new year. And that's not including the sewing stuff. Unemployment can be a wonderful thing -- frees the mind to wander/wonder. Now I just need to get pictures of all this stuff posted. A digital camera would be soooo neat to have. But the unemployment thing can get in the way to.

Just picked up 3 skeins of Tahki Donegal Tweed at half-price, in an amazing blood red with black tweedy bit, from one of my LYS, Colorful Stitches. Not a place I usually go to, since the customer service SUCKS, and the owner doesn't quite get the whole "maybe i should like my customers" thing. And I also picked up some very cute fabric at my LQS (local quilt shop, natch) Pumpkin Patch, to make some reusable grocery bags, that I found online at BurdaStyle, and open source pattern site (sort like Ravelry, but for sewers) and then I found a pant pattern, and then a shirt pattern, and now I am back up multiple baskets of projects.

Never in a bunch of years, would have I thought this to be true:

I got a great little teaching gig going right now. It's pretty exciting.....at the local art school in the Berkshires -- IS 183 -- and of course I am teaching knitting. I am just finishing up a 3 session learn to knit class, and will start, if I have enough participants, a 2-month long nordic knitting class. The learn to knit class will run again in January, and then I added a Hats, Mittens & Socks class for February & March. They also want to run a one-day intensive Learn to Knit in January just before the Hats....et al class starts to get a leg up for that class.

The classes have been great. I'd say most already know how to knit, but no-one ever taught them how to cast on, or bind off, or purl. It was all a matter of "oh let me do that for you....." by someone mother or aunt or friend. Many of these women (and it's all women...) do like their hands held.

In the end, the pay is good (they'll even pay me for  my prep time before and after class), it's a great way to increase the knitting universe, and maybe I'll sell a little knitting in the process.

so yaaah, I'm a loser.....haven't written for a really long time. you know, work gets in the way of real life. Between working at the theater and this retail lackey job, there wasn't a heck of a lot of time to write anything. But. interestingly enough, while working backstage doing wardrobe I did finish 4 scarves and 3 pairs of socks.

Right now it's onto Fall Festival again, hundreds of school kids and lots of Shakespeare. Luckily, I am at the same schools as I was last year, so I'll know most of the kids and parents.  I have not idea what shows are planned, but will probably get swamped next week when I go on contract. yipee!