gypsygirl

I finished the third baby item of the summer today. Whenever I go visit my mother, I always take the opportunity to go to the LYS near her work. Waco's generally a nice town, but is sadly lacking in yarn shops. When I was there a few months ago, I found a cute pattern for a cabled hoodie, and I decided to do that for the third object, rather than a second one of the fair isle sweaters. The finishing on the pattern was a bit simplistic, I think to make it accessible to newer knitters, so I made some changes. If I'd read all the way through the finishing instructions first, I'd have made a couple more.

The pattern says to knit the five main sections (back, 2 fronts, 2 sleeves), then do the button and buttonhole bands on the two fronts, then pick up stitches on the fronts and back for the hood, then do a band along the front of the hood, then sew the seams. The hood is knit up to a certain length, then a third of the stitches are cast off on either side, and you continue on the middle third, then sew it to the cast off sides.

If I'd read through the finishing instructions first, I'd have done the button, buttonhole and hood bands as one piece. But I'd already finished the two front bands before I read through the hood instructions, and didn't feel like frogging them. I did avoid seaming on the hood and to attach the hood band to the front bands (seaming is my least favourite part of knitting). I used this technique on a lace shawl to attach the outside edge to the middle section a few years ago. Instead of casting off the stitches on the two edges of the hood, when I got to that point, I knit to the last middle stitch and knit it together with the first edge stitch, then turned the work and knit back to the next edge and did the same thing, and just continued like that until I ran out of edge stitches. I did the same thing for the bands by picking up a few stitches on the top of the front bands when I started the hood band. Would have looked better if I'd done it all as one piece, but I think it looks better than sewing the seams.

And I found some really cute hippo buttons for it.

I've done a bit more work on the Twist & Shout jacket. After wearing it at work (where it's freezing!) for about a week, I decided I didn't like how the sleeves fit. They were too long, the arm hole was too big, and they were just generally sort of floppy. So I brought it back home, detached the sleeves, frogged them and re-knit them. I'd already done the smallest size of the pattern, so I had to wing it. I did them in the round (avoiding seaming, again!) using the Magic Loop technique, as I didn't have any dpns in that needle size. It was the second time I'd tried it, but only the first since I got my knitpicks interchangeable circulars, and I really enjoyed the technique this time. The cable of these needles is much more flexible. I may never use dpns again!

Audition for Noises Off! tomorrow. Same director that did Little Shop. I get the feeling he doesn't like me, because he has yet to learn my name. During the show he called me variously Donna, Margaret, You, and Nurse (I was in the dentist scene). Still, I'm interested in the show, and the worst that can happen is that I won't get cast.

I finally gathered my courage and steeked the armholes of the little fair isle sweater. After that, all I had left was the collar. I'm quite pleased with it.

I also finally (finally!!) finished the Twist & Shout sweater from the Fall 2008 Knitty. I had to do the collar twice because I picked up too many stitches the first time and it came down too far on the left. Picture's not too great, because I didn't have anyone around to take a picture of me in it, and I was too impatient to wait.

Now off to Ravelry to mark them both complete.

I've rearranged almost all the furniture in my loft and my poor dog doesn't know what to do with it. She's figured out where her bed is, at least.

I'd been thinking about doing this for a few weeks now. I have new housemates, and the one directly below my "office" (it's an attic loft, spaces are designated by furniture arrangements) has been running the bathroom extractor much more than the previous one. The roof vent for the extractor is right above the office, which means that when it's running, I can't record. So I'd been thinking of moving the office to the space catty-corner from where it had been, which just happened to be the "bedroom"; unfortunately, it couldn't be a straight swap, because there's a column in the office corner that makes that space smaller than the rest of the corners, so I had to move three corners... bedroom to "dining room/spare bedroom"; spare bedroom to office, dining room to open space in the middle of the loft, office to bedroom.

While I was going to be moving stuff around, I figured I'd try to make myself a better recording booth. Several months ago I built a frame for a booth out of 1" PVC pipe. It looked ok just by itself, but when I covered it with soundproofing blankets it got a bit saggy. It ended up being a glorified dog house for Lucy. Then I had another idea. Pegboard sheets (I can get 2' x 4' sheets at the hardware store) covered with acoustic foam tiles, attached in pairs with binder rings (which I had been using to hold up the blankets in the first booth). The tiles came at the end of last week, and I finished attaching them to the pegboards Friday afternoon. I used adhesive spray, but I think I'm going to have to go back with a hot glue gun, because a few have already come loose. I'll need to test it first, though, to make sure it won't melt the foam.

I started off with eight pegboards, which made a 4' square. On the floor inside I laid four interlocking rubber mats (like you see in children's playrooms), but once I had the four panel pairs up around it, and the mic inside, I found it a bit cramped, so I added the final two mats (which I'd been saving for blocking knitting projects) to make a 4' x 6' little room, and hung two of the sound-blocking blankets across the spaces between the pegboards.

I'm quite chuffed. I need to get a small table, and a second monitor to go with the secondary keyboard and mouse I already have, so I'll be able to leave the laptop outside the booth, but still be able to read off the screen, and control it from inside. And maybe a little stool instead of the chair.

As of Sunday night we finally get access to the theatre. Woo-hoo!

But we'll have less than one week to pull costumes, set pieces and the remaining props, record light and sound cues, and practice the chase scene. Gah!

Not to mention finish learning lines. Eek!

Deep breaths, deep breaths.

I really should read knitting patterns more carefully before I start. When I started the little sweater, I decided to do the pullover rather than the cardigan because I saw that the cardigan involved steeking, which I didn't think I was ready for yet. If I'd read more carefully, I'd have realized that the armholes on both the pullover and cardigan are created by steeking. Eek! If I'd noticed this before finishing the body, I'd have adjusted the pattern to take that into account, but it's too late now (the sweater's already terribly behind schedule and I don't fancy frogging the body back that far). So, I guess I'll be trying my hand at steeking after all. Toes crossed, and all that.

I also feel like an eejit because I made the second sleeve two inches too short! The pattern calls for increasing two stitches every fourth row until you get 78 stitches. That took me 68 rows on my counter for the first sleeve. When I started the second sleeve, I got my rows and stitches mixed up and stopped increasing at 68 stitches, and didn't bother to confirm by glancing at the pattern before I started the finishing off rows. *sigh*

They look much better now that they're even. And I'm going to be very pleased with the final product if the whole steeking thing works out.

My hero has backed out of the melodrama.

So, due to the dearth of good male actors in this town, I've decided to use a Principal Boy in my melodrama and cast a girl as my hero. Booyah!

I'll be directing a melodrama this summer. K and M both wanted to act one, M especially since she'll be moving back to GA in August, but there was doubt whether there would be one, because no one had submitted a proposal to do one. I told them that if they could find a script they liked, I'd submit a proposal to direct it. They came up with The Rose of Dismal Flats. I got the notice that I'd been approved a couple of weeks ago, and that my scripts had come in last night. First read-through tomorrow night! Show goes up a month from Wednesday!!!

One thing about this one, since it has a tiny cast (only 5 people), and I already had two people who wanted to be in it, and it's not a part of the main line-up, I went ahead and pre-cast rather than holding auditions. I think it'll be a good show.

I do so dislike having to play "takesies backsies" at baby showers, but I just didn't manage to finish the sweater. I'd be further along if I hadn't noticed a mistake two nights ago and frogged back to fix it. Still, baby isn't due till July, so hopefully I'll have it finished before then. And the shower was a fun way to finish a work day, even if all the men did congregate in one corner as if the rest of us had cooties (you'd think they'd have outgrown that by now!).

I've decided on Sense and Sensibility for my next LibriVox project. I'll do Anne's House of Dreams after that. I do wish Anne of Windy Poplars were out of copyright. It's one of my favourites in the series. Darn you, Lucy Maud Montgomery! You should have written faster!

Now that Gypsy is over, I've been able to get some serious recording done. Tonight I finished the last two sections of a biography of Padre Pio for Ignatius Press, and the last two chapters of What Katy Did, which I'm doing for LibriVox. Now I have to decide on a new LV project. I'm wavering between Sense and Sensibility and Anne of Green Gables.

Now I'm off to knit. I hope to get the body of the little sweater finished tonight. Then just have to do the sleeves by Thursday!

A bunch of us went to a karaoke bar after strike yesterday. My first time, because until now I've only ever sung karaoke at Beth and Marcel's parties (not that I ended up singing last night... the line was kind of long). It was fun, and we may have been a little too loud. We got a few dirty looks from the regulars. But this is the first time in ages that I've been in a place that allows smoking and I'm living with the consequences this morning. I haven't been this stuffed up since my allergies wore off at the end of last season.