Cherry Blossoms & finished objects

FINALLY a spring day!! I leave for San Francisco in a week and this is the first gorgeous day since I got home. It's been cold and rainy and then, boom, 76 degrees and bright blue sky. Yesterday David cleaned up the deck, cut down all the dead plants, swept up and made it livable again. Our pal Nell came over and we had our first brunch on our deck. Bagels & cream cheese on our deck on a perfect Sunday is my idea of heaven!


I finished two and a half of the sweater capelets for Melissa. Here's the small one.











Not much is happening in our garden yet. All the perrenials are starting to peak out, there are a few little tulips poking their heads out.


The flowering quince is looking good


As great as hanging out on our deck was, we decided to head off to the Botanic Garden to check out the Cherry Blossoms. The festival is next week, but that's my last day in town, and I must go to the fleece festival in the zoo!

The main esplanade was not in bloom yet, but there were many other trees in bloom

(Me modeling amongst the blossoms)

(An actual model amongst the blossoms)

Being in the garden inspired us to do a little planting of our own. I'm usually the gardener, but since I'll be gone most of the summer, David will be on his own. We decided to plant one box of lettuce for David to enjoy between now and the end of June.


Saturday is my last day off in New York, and then it's back to San Fran. I've packed a bag full of cotton yarn, and last months Vogue Knitting. I plan on making a lot of the little lacy sweaters this summer.

Back to knitting on the subway

It's odd the little New York rituals and routines that you take for granted, even hate sometimes, that you miss like crazy when you spend five months in a strange city. I've been back home for almost three weeks now, I only have a little over two left until Jersey Boys takes me back to San Francisco. I ride the subway everyday, carefully calculate the walking time . . . if I get the train at 8:17 am it's crowded but you might be able to get a seat by DeKalb, 8:21 I can get a seat right away, 8:26 TOO crowded. The careful New York math based on travel time to work v.s. ability to sit. I'm catching up on plenty of podcasts, and of course, knitting.

I've finished the front and back of my mohair cotton sweater


Here's the detail of the mohair lace pattern


I'm putting the sleeves on hold in favor of knitting up the three sweater capelets I promised to my pal Melissa from Tour 1. Here's my progress so far on the first one.


On Thursday I went to the Tea Lounge for a Park Slope knitting Meet Up. I could only stay a little over an hour, but it was so nice to see folks.

A week at home

This week has been SOOO great being back at home. Last Saturday David and I spent most of the day walking around our neighborhoods. We walked past the Gowanus Canal past the strange little art galleries, tucked into alleyways. We stopped into one place that had an exhibit based on the idea of "library", and a match museum.

"library book" - A giant book that opens up into a model of a library

"Interlocking Bibles"

Here's some crazy pics from the Match Museum

It was a gorgeous day last weekend (as opposed the the 32, what the @!$@!#% degrees it is today). Here's one of the many churches of Brooklyn.




We walked and walked and walked. It felt so great to be back in NY where you don't think anything of walking for miles. We walked from our house in the Slope, through Gowanus, to Carrol Gardens, to Cobble Hill over to Atlantic Ave.


By that time we were getting pretty tired. I was still looking for the light blue yarn for those damn sweaters that I promised Melissa (from the first national tour) that I'd make her. So, it was off to Knit a Way. Nothing jumped out at me, and we were beat, so we hopped on the subway




I've finally finished with the damn cotton for this sweater I'm sort of making up. I attached the mohair for the neck and it's coming along nicely. I've actually finished the whole back, but this is a photo from a few days ago:

Here's the detail:


We've finished the first week of rehearsals for the Chicago company of Jersey Boys and things are going really well. All the music has been taught, and choreography has begun. We finished taping out the set in two rooms, and finished spiking the main room. There are 8 gajillion spikes in this show. Spikes are little colored tape marks that show the actors where to put all the furniture. To give you an idea of how many there are, here's a picture of our freshly set up rehearsal room


Here's the ASM Brendan M. Fay collapsed amongst the many spikes (he did all the spiking!)


To celebrate being all set up, our Associate conductor staged a photo of the whole Stage Management team as a rock band


Back to my cotton / mohair sweater. More tales of knitting next time. I just got my Rowan Calmer plum in the mail. I'm going to cast on Tempting II. Can't wait!

Back in Brooklyn and LOVING IT

I've been back in New York a week. I came back to rehearse the second company of Jersey Boys. Last week amongst all the pre production paperwork, I managed to have some late afternoon and Saturday fun in Brooklyn.

The first thing I did when I got home last Monday is rush up to our roof garden. It was mostly still sleeping . . . except for the crocus bed. There, spring has sprung



I've been loving spending time walking around Park Slope and doing little Brooklyn things like going to the 99 cent store with my pal Nell (or as Nell calls a particular stretch of 7th Ave in Park Slope, "the 99 cent district") to buy crap we need, and more crap we don't.


Here's a lovely view of Carroll Street in my hood



Friday afternoon was spent searching for the elusive baby blue yarn in the perfect gauge that Melissa Strom wants for her sweater capelets. The alpaca I ordered from Knit Picks is really pretty, but not the color she wants. So, off to Seaport Yarns I go. Sadly, no luck. Baby blue is not a popular grown up color. Lots of baby yarn, not much chunky, yummy yarn. As long as we were at the Seaport, Nell and I did the tourist thing.


Nell and I having a little Seaport lunch


My cotton sweater is coming along pretty well. Soon it's time to add the mohair lace. More on that later.


More tales of Park Slope, searching for the perfect baby blue yarn, Jersey Boys rehearsal, and of course . . . knitting to come in the next few days. I've gotten a bit behind