Sheep, Cherry Blossoms, Veggies & SPRING

Nothing says Spring like the Shearing of Sheep. Last weekend I enjoyed two of my favorite springtime Park Slope rituals. . . The Cherry Blossom Festival in Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the Fleece Festival at the Prospect Park Zoo.

We started the rainy day at the BBG. Despite the rain, the blossoms were amazing.




My pal Micheal and I relaxing in the outdoor lounge



Next it was off to the zoo to the adorable little Fleece Fest. It's really just sheep sheering with some music, but I love it anyway





In the land of knitting, I finished my Short & Chic Cardi, pretty happy with it

I was also inspired by the Knitting Surgeon class I just taught at the Studio, to revisit an old sweater. I was teaching how you can lengthen or shorten a knitted piece and I remembered the cotton boat neck sweater I had whose sleeves always bugged me. So I came home, cut, put it back on the needles and started fixing the sleeves. One down, one to go.

I also got back to some serious spinning. I did about 4 hours on the wheel, and I forgot how much I LOVE spinning. I really want to get through the roving I have so I can get my hands on the stuff I bought at Rhinebeck in October.

I also almost finished Stew's baby sweater. I'm so loving the LB Collection Cotton Bamboo, and it's turning out really cute. She better not turn out to be a boy!

Eat, Knit, and be Happy

That is the new slogan for my life.





Before I left for Italy (which I will blog about later) I said I had some huge news. I have been an Equity Stage Manager for (ahem) 21 years. I've been thinking for some time about a life change. I often spent my day off from Jersey Boys, poking around the Internet to see what kind of jobs were out there. . . and then one day I saw it, an add for a manager of a knitting store. Hmm I thought, I wonder what store it is. When I found out it was one of my favorite stores in the world, The Point Knitting Cafe, I had to explore it. After several e-mail exchanges, I met with the owner in person, and, long story short. (drum roll please), I begin my new life as the manager of The Point on September 4th!!!!


For you New York knitters out there, many of you already know and love the shop (and if you don't know it, run, don't walk to 37 A Bedford Street in the Village). It's a fantastic knitting shop and an adorable cafe all rolled into one. It's the kind of place you can come meet up with some friends and spend the day. My friend Francesca and I could spend hours there. We would start early in the afternoon with coffee and muffins and before we knew it, four hours would go by and it was time for a salad and the worlds' yummiest quiche.

So all you blogger/knitters out there, come by and see me. I'll be on my own starting after Labor day and I'd love to have some friendly faces. I also really want to hear from you all. I'd love to get your thoughts on what makes your dream knitting store. What do you love, what do you hate, what do you wish you could find?

Stay tuned there will be lots of news to come. Stories of life in the store, what it's like to learn a whole new business. I may use this blog from time to time to kick ideas around and see what you all think.

I'll take some time over the next few days to tell the tales of my knitting through Italy. I'm back in beautiful Brooklyn and tomorrow I head back to San Francisco to finish up my time with Jersey Boys.

The two projects I took to Italy were Jenny Lee Ramos' bikini and a cotton tank top. I mostly worked on the bikini, the tank top was for travel on planes in Europe (plastic needles!) I cast on the bikini top on the plane to London, and cast it off on the train to Venice.


Here I am blocking the top while wearing it on the deck of our place on the Lido


I cast on the bottom and finished the front by the time we were home:



The cotton cable tank (to use up some more of the cotton yarn my mother in law gave me) is also coming along:


It's been so great to be back in Park Slope and it makes me SOOOOO excited for my permanent return in the fall. The first thing we did the morning after arriving home was do a little garden clean up and then spend a good chuck of our day enjoying the roof garden:


All in all the garden is doing pretty well. The lilies are in bloom





More later. I must sit on my roof deck now and enjoy my last day in Brooklyn for the next six weeks.

Leaving on a jet plane (part two)

I'm back in San Fran. I just finished my first day back in the theatre. It was sad to leave Brooklyn. I finished Melissa's sweaters in the nick of time. Here they are in small, medium and large. The large still has water marks on it from blocking:


She looked adorable in it! My first successful commission . . . even though I charged her basically $2.00 an hour. Live and learn!

My last day in Brooklyn was spent at the Wool Festival at the Brooklyn Zoo. It's mostly for kids, but of course when you say wool, the Park Slope Knitting group comes a running.


The day began with the animals, the founder of our fiber feast, the woolly animals that make our hearts go pitter patter.


There were the oh so fuzzy Costwolds just dying for a hair cut.







The sheep and goats were all good friends.

The always evil looking Jacob sheep:

Then it was time to step outside and enjoy the beautiful Alpacas.


Ooh so soft and yummy . . .



The kids really seemed to enjoy the animals . . . and they weren't looking at them as potential sweaters.










Next it was time for fun with roving. The nice folks at the Brooklyn General had set up a big ole table in the monkey house and filled it with roving and spindles. Our little knitting group descended upon the roving like a pack of hungry wolves (or appropriately enough, crazed monkeys). We started digging in and spinning away:


There was also a spinning wheel. Alexandra jumped right in to give it a whirl and then start teaching. Here's a little spinning video:

click to watch spinning

If you notice the last thing Alexandra says on the video is "you're next Patty". Unfortunately I never got a chance to jump on the wheel, because I got a call from my pal who was having a crappy time at work.

Yet I managed to do a little spinning while sympathetically listing to my pal.


Finally, the moment we'd all been waiting for. The sheering of the sheep.

"what the hell is happening"

Going . . .

Going . . .

Gone

The day ended up on the roof enjoying the last of the sunshine in our garden before it was time to go.


Goodbye Brooklyn. . .


Until we meet again

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!