I'm leaving on a jet plane . . .

My bags are packed and I ready to fly! I'm heading back to beloved Brooklyn Sunday at 10:50 pm. YEAH!! Tonight the company and I will go out for my goodbye drink. Since I'm flying on Sunday night, I figured a Saturday night drink would be better.

Since I'm only back in NY for five weeks, I'm going to leave the spinning stuff in San Francisco and just focus on my knitting. I have a ton of projects on the burner. I've promised one of the Jersey Girls that I would make three little shrug sweaters for her and her two sisters. I ordered the yarn from Knit Picks, Decadance, and it should waiting for me when I get back. I also promised socks to my friend Tim.

My cotton and mohair sweater is coming along, but I'm not sure it's going to look very good. I wanted to try cotton for a sweater, and this may be the first and last.

More pics and knitting news when I'm home.

Knitting on the Tonight Show

I've just got back from an unbelievably exhausting, but great trip with Jersey Boys to make their network television debut on The Tonight Show. Last night after our show we got on a bus and headed to LAX. Since we all had the same Jersey Boys duffel bag (that we got for opening night), the phrase "is that my bag, oh wait, no, is that my bag, oh there it is" was heard more then once. We were "What's Up Doc" waiting to happen.

By the time we landed, got on our bus and checked into the hotel it was past midnight. Since I had to be up at 7:00 am for our load in, I was pretty damn tired. The crew was great, and by the time the cast arrived at 10:30 am, we were ready to start our spacing rehearsal.


After a few runs for the director, she made a few adjustments, and then it was time for lunch.

Here are the ladies enjoying their dressing room snacks:


The Jersey Boys in their room across the hall:

After lunch it was time for a camera run, and finally a little down time. I grabbed for my knitting an went to visit with the ladies while they got into makeup. For a while I thought I would be too busy to even pick up my sweater, but I got a few rounds done while waiting for men to be escorted to the make-up room.

Meanwhile, what knitting is for me, cards are to the ensemble boys of Jersey. Those cards come out every time there's a little dead time


Next it's time to get the ladies wigged up while the men get dressed.











Here's the lovely Jen on the phone with her Grandma waiting outside the hair room.

A little more waiting, and then . . . show time. 3 minutes and 20 seconds later, it was all over. Pack up, pizza on the fly, back on the bus, back on the plane, back home. . . to sleep.

Where to start . . .

So much is happening, I don't know where to start.

My biggest news is, a week from Monday I'll be back home (yeah!!!). I am switching from Jersey Boys first national tour, to the second national tour. This means I get to be home for five glorious weeks while I rehearse with the second company. I can't WAIT!!! I'm beyond thrilled to sleep in my own bed and see (hopefully) spring come into ole New York.

Last weekend my mom came to visit me. We did a lot of sightseeing. That was fun for me, since I mostly knit, watch TV, and do the show. That's it. On Monday we took a sightseeing bus and it was a FAB 80 degree day. Here are a few random tourist pics:

(Union Square)

(TransAm building)

(China Town Gate)

At Telegraph Hill near the stairs to Coit Tower there was this house with these kind of cool statues on it's balcony

(View from Coit Tower)

(Coit Tower)

(Murals in Coit Tower)











(Houses on Alamo Square)

In other knitting news, I made a little sweater capelet for the fabulous Jackie Seiden for her birthday. Here she is looking as gorgeous as she always does (oh, the short woman next to her is me).

I've also started a sweater of my own design. I'm loosely basing it on a sweater from the pattern a day calendar, but it's mostly my first design. I had an idea of mixing cotton tightly knit for the body, with a lacy mohair top and sleeves. I'll post some pics in progress.

Last big news is, set your TIVO & VCR's for this Monday night's Tonight Show. The first national cast of Jersey Boys will be making their network television debut. We fly to L.A. Sunday night after the show, arrive at the studio on Monday morning for spacing rehearsal, then camera rehearsal, then into costume and make up, tape the show, wash our faces, and back on a plane home.

Tell ya all about it later.

I LOVE Brooklyn

I took two glorious days off from Jersey Boys last weekend to go home to New York. I got in at 11:00 am on Saturday morning after taking the red eye right from the theatre Friday night. Unfortunately I had to change planes, so I was pretty tired. It didn't matter though, the moment I saw David and our beloved Brooklyn, I was wide awake. After we dropped off my bag we headed over to Grand Army Plaza to go to the Farmer's Market. It being kind of between seasons, there wasn't much, but there's always baked goods and apple cider! Next it's a walk through the Brooklyn Botanic Garden . . . oh did I mention it was 58 degrees and sunny and PERFECT. Then we strolled over to our beloved Brooklyn Library to look around at whatever exhibit was in the main hall (are you beginning to see a theme. I'll give you a hint . . . it starts with "Brook"). Now it was nap time. Next a stroll through Park Slope to look at all the shops on 7th & 5th Ave. After a fab Park Slope dinner at one of our fave places with some friends, we headed back home for pie (from the Farmer's Market) and a roaring fire. GOD I missed my fireplace. This is where I spent most of my Monday knitting

Sunday I had brunch with friends (in Park Slope, of course), and then headed into Manhattan to the Museum of Arts & Design. Only knitting would pull me out of Park Slope with only three precious days at home. I went to go to the Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting exhibit. It was interesting, although not as radical as some of the stuff we can see on the web. Here's the Times review.

Here are tiny gloves (yes they are really knit)










Here's a pretty damn cool dress with ichords made from all different materials:















Here's what the NY Times incorrectly identified as a work made after the 9/11 restriction on knitting.


It didn't have anything to do with that, it was made before that and the artist commented that the week the work was finished was ironically the week knitting was banned on airplanes



Here are "lace" skirts made from paper doilies


This is lace hand cut with an exacto knife. It was HUGE. It would make me want to shove the exacto knife in my eye.


This was a computer program that make knitting charts out of photos or video. It was more than just that though. The videos were talking about big business and child labor and mass produced items. There was also a knitted NIKE logo.

Lace skulls:


This was a lamp made from knitting fiber optic chords together:


This was a model of a giant knitting machine. There was also a video of the actual knitting machine at Mass MoCa

A knitted mushroom cloud:

Clothes knitted out of newspaper

Next it was back home for a roaring fire and hot chocolate. That evening we went to a movie at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music, the theme continues).

On Monday another lunch with a friend in Carroll Gardens, and then knitting by the fire all day. By Monday afternoon, it had dropped about 30 degrees and started to snow. Here's the view out our window



A perfect day to stay in. When David got home it was homemade Risotto and a movie.

All in all, a PERFECT three days in Park Slope Brooklyn. Then it was back to San Fran for another week of shows. My mom is visiting me now, so I'll post more later.

Single minded knitting

I went through that cast on o'holic phase, can't commit, wanted it all, but I'm done. Now I'm a single minded knitter. Oh sure, I occasionally stray from a project with a little spinning, but for the most part I've become so impatient to have a finished object that once yarn goes on needles I can think of little else but the day it comes off. . . Hence the 7 day sweater. Followed up by the one day sweater. First came the bizarre two way sweater from Vogue. Here's how the cowl neck version looked on the needles (front)


(back)


I still was NOT getting how this would look on me. So I flipped it around to try to visualize how it would look as a V neck. Here it is (front):

(back)

My burning need to solve the mystery of this bizarre garment drove me to finish the sweater in exactly 7 days. I cast it on Monday night at Chicks with Sticks and the following Monday night I was wearing it. It came out okay, but I ended up making a little modification. Here's how it looked, knit directly from the pattern.

Cowl neck side:


Kind of weird looking with the big ole v going up the front, but then I thought I might look better flipped around as a v neck:


It's kind of hard to tell from this photo, but the waist band cut my chest in half, and then the helpful v dissected it yet again, having the most amazing flattening affect I've ever seen, basically, I didn't like it either way. . . so, I knit a little triangular insert. I just cast on 18 stitches and worked in the K1, P1 rib with decreasing on each side until I got myself a little triangle, and here's the final result.

Cowl neck


V neck:


Still kind of weird, but I like it better.

Here's the back in both cowl & v neck. If you think it's taking photos in the mirror, try taking photos over your shoulder of your back in the mirror!











I had some yarn left over, so I decided to cast on (one Tuesday morning) the Anthrogologie inspired sweater.


By Tuesday night. . . cast it off, blocked it on Wednesday,


and was wearing it by Thursday.


Here's the final product:

I still have to add a button to the collar