May Days

Hello!  It’s been a minute.  With so much cacophony on the internet these days, I’m increasingly loathe to add my voice (however small and innocuous) to the overall noise.  There is so much temptation to despair and I just…can’t.*  

The musical at the kids’ school this year was My Fair Lady and I ended up doing all the costuming myself.  Piglet had a main role as Alfed P. Doolittle and he was a scream!  So funny.  There were a lot of funny moments in the play and the production really was spectacular.  

Our Eliza was magnificent, but Higgins and Pickering also knocked it out of the park.  Fun fact: my main backstage role this year was valeting the actor playing Pickering—ha!

Probably our best show to date, and also our biggest.  Costuming was a ton of fun but also a LOT of work.  I’m particularly pleased with how the Ascot scene turned out, but honestly, getting all the Cockney Ensemble folks ready was fun too.  I got to build Eliza’s ballroom jewelry, including the great hair ornament.

I enjoyed it so much and am looking forward to costuming the Shakespeare play in the fall (Boo, Birdie, and Ponchik all have roles).

As soon as that wrapped up in late March, I pivoted back to my book in progress because I wanted to enter the first part of it into a writing competition.  (They wanted the first 5000 words, which I had, easily, but needed to fix some of the flow in that section).  In the process, I rediscovered an editing software I used on All This Without You.  I had used it for line edits on grammar and liked it a lot better than Grammarly (which gives me a pain), so I was inclined to go back to it on this book.  

In these intervening years, the software has had major upgrades and now includes a whole box of analytical tools that are so helpful.  I used it for a manuscript analysis and I was immediately able to dive into substantive editing with a lot of good direction.  My second analysis was similarly useful.  I’m wrapping up the last of that analysis before running another (or possibly running the beta reader function).  I’m hoping to have real beta readers look at it this summer.  

My only complaint is that a lot of my characters are speaking in dialect, and the grammar checker absolutely cannot deal with it.  I’m sure there is probably a way to do something in the settings, but my computer is very elderly (the lady at the Apple store said “vintage”) so I think I don’t have as much functionality as I would on a newer model.  But it still works (except for the keyboard, which is finicky and troublesome, so I’m on a bluetooth keyboard that I do not love, but whatever).  I’m not interested in changing out electronics just because.  My phone is old, my teeth are gold, and now my story is all told.**

I put in some heavy labor at the garden during the last week in April and I need to do a bit more this week on my plot.  I’m on the committee that takes care of the communal areas and I have a section I’m responsible for, so a good chunk of that heavy labor involved dealing with that.  

We are looking to have a bumper strawberry harvest, though!  I bought a couple of tomato plants, a cuke and a pepper, put in seeds several weeks ago and we’ll see what we get.  I was so busy in March and April I didn’t really get to enjoy the spring bulbs much, but that’s okay.  There’s always next year.

And before it gets super ridiculous to share, here’s my Javelin sweater, completed in late January or early February.  I wanted to make this pattern for several years, but I absolutely could not get my brain around the gauge or the pattern repeat, until suddenly I could.  (For the record, it is a twisted rib that is knit through the back loop; I wish she had said that somewhere in the pattern!  I would have made it a lot sooner).  

I also have a hard time figuring out gauge when it has to be over a pattern.  How does one count the stitches?  I’ve done it a few times now and I *think* I’ve figured it out?  But it always throws me for a loop (ha—see what I did there?)

Nothing much to note about the pattern itself; it was very straightforward once I got the pattern repeat down, and Teti’s patterns are all so intelligently designed with short rows to lengthen the back, and other small details like that.  I very consistently get well-fitting sweaters I love from her patterns.  It is worsted weight and I wore it a lot during these past few cold months.

It’s spring now and the weather is drunk, so go home please.  We had some days of 90 degree weather, then it dropped back close to freezing, and then has been swinging between the 80s and the 50s.  I’ve swapped my wool unders for silk ones, but I’m still cold all the time, except when I’m boiling in the 90 degree heat.  Ah, spring.  

Piglet successfully defended his senior thesis last week and now we are in the very fast slide to graduation in about a month.  *gulp*  He’s currently on his senior capstone trip to Europe with his classmates.  

So I’m feeling all the feelings, natch. I knew it would be like this—like the merry-go-round is going too fast and I really want to get off and let the scene settle in front my eyes for a few moments, but the best I can do is hold on and enjoy the ride.

That’s it for me at the moment.  I just finished the new Count of Monte Cristo series on PBS (very good, highly recommend) and  am trying to finish The Forsytes (not as good, very mixed feelings as I love the 2002 version and this one is…different).  

Discovered the 2008 Sense and Sensibility from the BBC (written by Andrew Davies, who did the 1995 Pride and Prejudice).  I absolutely adore Emma Thompson’s take on the book, and Alan Rickman will always be the definitive Col. Brandon for me, but I really like the BBC's 3-episode series.  The three-hour series is able to cover much more of the book than the movie.  

I’m trying to keep my head down on the editing and gardening and everything else that needs doing this time of year. I started the Orna sweater in January right after finishing the Javelin, but it is going slower because I had to set it aside until last week. It is worsted weight so I won’t want to wear it for a while anyway, and it is good to have an all-over pattern that is engaging but not impossible to follow. It is strange to not have a dozen handwork projects on the go, but that is okay too. Reading and editing are important and enjoyable too.

*Pascha photos courtesy of a very talented photographer at our parish; photos of My Fair Lady from a talented professional photographer parent at our school.

**Riffing on Dr. Suess.  Bonus points if you can name that book. 

Redux

I haven’t felt much like writing these past weeks.  As I’ve said in the past, the 6 weeks between January 1 and February 15 are really crazy for our family, with birthdays, namesdays, several church feasts, and a memorial day.  

This year we had the added complications of flu, strep, and whooping cough for several members of the family, which meant we were all quarantined for five days with antibiotics and tamiflu for everyone.  And we are all vaccinated!!  Very frustrating.  Somehow I didn’t get sick (thank God, as someone had to stay standing!) but I was a little run off my feet for the ones who were.  But we do have a working vehicle again and the lady at the Genius bar fixed my laptop in like five minutes, plus replaced several keys that weren’t working, so I’m very grateful for all that!

The quarantine happened to fall over Old Calendar Christmas, so we had to miss church services that day, which was disappointing.

Sometimes, my life just feels like…a lot.  

Anyway, we got something like a foot of snow and ice yesterday, so of course the city is shut down and the kids are off school.  I’m hoping we can get our car out and reparked this week, since it is supposed to be very cold and I’d rather the kids not have to troop 20 minutes on either side of the commute to public transit as they usually do.  

Have you been following the news from Kamchatka?  Me neither.  Our priest mentioned yesterday that the province has received a historic 7 feet (!!) of snow in the first two weeks of January, which is a lot, even for them.  Someone sent a video of the city on our church group chat and the snow is up past the second floor on a lot of the buildings.  They have built some pretty impressive sledding hills from the drifts, several stories high!  (The link above has an embedded video of the sledding).

So our little bit doesn’t seem too bad by comparison!  Below is our back patio, which includes the snow shoveled off the roof.  That is a 55 gallon trash can, for reference.  (We have a flat roof, so it needs shoveling every time we have significant snow).  I told the boys to avoid hitting the raspberry canes if they could; if they break, we get no berries this summer.  So far, so good.

Ponchik is ready to conquer the pile:

I’ve been meaning to post these pictures for a while; they are obviously taken before the harsh weather hit.  The sweater might be familiar.  It is the Lightweight Pullover that I finished in December or January of 2023, just as I was starting my most recent (and so far, most successful) weight loss journey.  I’ve lost the equivalent of a 3rd grader: 60 or so pounds and 49”.  I’ve been maintaining since the spring of 2024, so I think that is pretty good.

But about the sweater: it had got a hole near the shoulder blade in 2024 that I repaired badly, but was willing to overlook, but then the hem had some holes this fall and that was the straw.  For the record, the hole repair was using the technique that everyone says to use for these sorts of holes, but it just didn’t look good when I finished. 

 I would have been better off repairing it the way I usually repair these sorts of things.  

Anyway, I frogged the body of the sweater up to the arm holes and reknit the whole thing, making the body considerably longer.  In retrospect, I wish I had added short rows to the back hem to make the back longer because my shoulders are so rounded forward, but I always forget to make this modification and then it seems like a lot to unravel and redo.

The original length never really worked for me, and even though I had lengthened the hem about 1/2” or so in 2024, it still was too short.  I could probably have stood another inch or so in the body, but this is a fine length too.  

It’s not really the right weather to wear it now, as the yarn is fingering weight, but I’m looking forward to wearing it in the spring!  Right now all my worsted sweaters are on repeat (with multiple wool base layers, natch), and it will be nice to rotate those few out in a couple of months.  

I received two sweaters’ worth worsted wool yarn for Christmas and my namesday, so I’m working on a super snuggly sweater right now that I’m very eager to wear.  I’m done the yoke and just about to put the sleeves on holders, so it’s been a quickish knit.  (That autumnal red Dorchas sweater I mentioned in a previous post has been frogged and reknitted to a different pattern and I still don’t like it.  I need to reassess my options for that yarn.  Le sigh).  

Usually the winter break is so nuts that I don’t get anything done, but somehow, even with all the illness in the house, I managed to find time to make an earring and necklace set for our choir director at church.  She is really into preserving and making Russian folk costume and has a folk singing group for whom she made all the outfits: 

Her work is really amazing; she makes stunning pieces, particularly these elaborate kokoshniks that she sells:  

She’s also trying to work aspects of traditional folk costume into her everyday wear without looking costume-y, and I really love some of the pieces she’s come up with.  (I’m also taking notes!)

Anyway, she has been wearing a lot of amber this fall, and I thought it would be fun to make her a set that featured amber and ivory.

I’m quite pleased with how it came out.  The square glass beads are Czech glass, and the big brown bead is from a pair of earrings I took apart a long time ago.  The beads on the wire are wood; everything else is amber or ivory.  

Other news: Piglet turned 18 and we had a bit of a wrangle to get my proxy access for his health care stuff restored.  Can I just say that I hate HIPPA laws with the white hot burning passion of a thousand suns?  For the record, he wants me to help him manage all that stuff, so to just suddenly cut off access for him and me because he turned 18 and then make it hard to restore was super frustrating.  The pediatrician’s office process was very straightforward and easy, but our other providers have been a bit of a pain.  

Thankfully it is all up and running again.  I imagine there will be another upheaval when he heads to college this fall.  He got into his first choice college with a decent scholarship, so we are all happy and relieved about that!  

I was telling a friend last week that I suddenly had this panicky feeling, like the fall semester had been the ski lift to the top of the mountain, but now we had summited, it was going to be a fast swoosh to the bottom and I’m not ready for that!