gypsygirl

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.

I need to get back to knitting! Next baby shower is next Thursday and I haven't finished the body yet, much less the sleeves (though I'd already decided that I'm going to do stripes on the sleeves rather than the star/snowflake design that's on the body, so they shouldn't take as long).

I've had to pause in the knitting a couple of times, to work on costumes for Gypsy and then cos I got the flu (never feels right to work on baby garments while ill... not that I had the energy for it anyway).

We had our first Adventure Lunch* at work today and towards the end it degenerated into a discussion of Lost. And no way to escape because I rode with someone else. Ugh.

As for the rest of the lunch, it was good. We went to a new Japanese Steakhouse; food was good, decently priced, service was good. Everyone else at my table had various kinds of meat on the hibachi; since a high percentage were having shrimp, I decided to have veg tempura instead. I didn't want my food cooked on the same grill as shrimp. My intolerance to it isn't dangerous (no anaphylactic shock or trips to the hospital), but it is unpleasant.

*Every summer we make a list of new restaurants in town that at least three quarters of the group haven't been to yet and go to one each week.

This may be the first time I'm glad it's Monday, only because it means that last week is over.

Can you say, "week from hell"?

I got the flu on Monday, was sick till Wednesday, and just as I was starting to feel better, I found that my scooter had been stolen from the driveway while I was out of it. Fortunately, it was found on Thursday, but that made that a stressful day, dealing with recovering it and getting it to the shop, and talking to the insurance people, etc.

And then cap off the week with three fun, but stressful performances of Gypsy!

Ai. I'm worn out.

So I was at a luncheon yesterday; part of it was a showcase of fashions created by one of the family and consumer science students. In describing her collection, she wanted to say something about it being enrapturing and captivating but she got a bit tongue-twisted and ended up saying it was 'enraptivating'. My new word of the week. The luncheon was enraptivating.

Sitting in a hotel ballroom listening to Tim O'Reilly talk about cloud computing and the future of data. Feeling a little lost because my laptop's back light gave out and I only have my phone now. Ack!

I've finished the little dress from the Dale book, and it turned out soooo cute!! I'm really pleased with it. I bought some little pewter clasps online to use as buttons.

The shower is next Saturday, so it's pretty good timing.

I've started the next project. I was originally going to do one of the sweaters as a cardigan and the other as a pullover (the pattern has instructions for both), but before I started I read through the cardigan pattern and saw that it's knitted in the round and then steeked. I've never done steeking before, and while I do want to try it, I figured a gift item wasn't the best test piece, so I'm going to do two pullovers instead and save steeking for another day.

I'd be twice as far along, only I realized a couple of rows below this that I'd mis-read the pattern and was starting the rows in the colour-work graph at the wrong place (I'd started the first one in the right place, but then was going to the far right at the beginning of each new row, instead of back to the same starting place), so I frogged it and started over. Much better now. The one thing I don't like about this pattern so far, is that there are a couple of rows that involve three colours of yarn. It's orders of magnitude tanglier than just two.

At LV I recently finished The Sky Is Falling by Lester del Rey, another sci-fi story. My next project is What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge. I'd wanted to do it a couple of years ago, but someone else started a solo version before I could get to it, so I put it off and did What Katy Did at School instead. The other project has since been completed, so I feel like I can do mine without stepping on anyone's toes.

Recently watched the new-ish version of Sense and Sensibility (I think it was part of that Austen series they showed on Masterpiece a year or so ago, but I missed it then). I really liked it. Well enough to buy a copy for my library. None of the others in the series impressed me that much, and I will keep faithful to the earlier versions I already own (P&P w/ Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, Persuasion w/ Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root). Not to say I no longer like the Emma Thompson version of S&S, though.

We're doing Gypsy at the WCT. I tried out for one of the stripper roles, but got cast as Miss Cratchitt, the secretary in the New York scene. Should be fun... I'm onstage for two scenes at the end of act 1, and the rest of the time I'll be able to read, play cards, relax back stage. Reminds me of Christmas Carol.

Twist & Shout? Yeah. I've been working on that pattern from the Fall 2008 issue of Knitty since the fall of 2008. I just can't get the darned thing finished!

First off, shortly after I got the yarn, Lucy decided it would be great fun to strew the entire contents of the package around the living room floor one day while I was at work. Thank goodness I came home for lunch that day, or by the end of the day it would probably have been unsalvageable. As it is, I called in sick to work and spent the rest of the afternoon untangling yarn. I had to throw some away, but I was able to salvage most of it (spent the rest of the project picking dog hairs out of it, though).

I did finally start the project during the 08-09 winter, but kept putting it aside to work on gifts for other people. I managed to get about halfway up the back before I got to the point, weatherwise, where I no longer wished to knit.

By the time I picked it up again last fall, I had no idea where, exactly, I was in the pattern (you have to keep count on two or three different things at a time), so I ripped it out and started over. I knew I was going to have to buy more yarn to get it finished, thanks to dear Lucy, but I'm obviously a horrible judge of yarn needs. I keep getting "just one more skein" to finish the thing off, and coming to the end of it and thinking, "ok, surely just one more skein?".

I've finished the five sections, pieced it together and am about halfway through the collar. But I'm at a standstill now because I'm out of yarn (again!) and knitpicks (who make this yarn), won't have any more of this colour in stock until May!

In other projects, I have three friends having babies within the next four to six months, so I'm working on gifts now. I'm finally making the little dress from the Dale baby book that I've been wanting to make for so long (but my friends kept having boys!). I'm about a quarter of the way through it. For my other two friends I'm making pullovers from another Dale baby book. Unfortunately, the yarn I ordered for those got nicked off my front porch between the time it was delivered and the time I got home from work. Pisses me off! >:( When I re-order I'm going to have it sent to work.