My Patons Wool Adventure

Quite some time ago, I very enthusiastically purchased 5 skeins of Patons wool yarn in a lovely sage.  I planned to make an arrowhead lace shawl whose pattern contained only instructions I was familiar with or could look up online to identify.  I felt sure it would be simple enough for me to complete without too much trouble.  I was WRONG!  The pattern is wonderful, don't get me wrong, but with the endless yarn-overs and no way to really keep track of how many you've done in any given row, I kept screwing up the pattern and having to rip it back.  After ripping the entire thing back three times and then forgetting where I left off, I decided to make the shawl into a kerchief and do something else with the lovely wool.  Here's the awesome kerchief that I made from the shawl.  I somehow had just enough done to make it the perfect size.

I wear this thing all the time!  It's perfect for keeping the hair out of the face when on the work site or when painting sets or just doing laundry.  I even wore it when I took my nephew to Fort Morgan and to the beach, because it keeps my hair from blowing around.

So anyway, I've been searching for several months to find a good shawl pattern to use up this wool.  It's so pretty and nice, I just had to find something good.  I tried designing something, but it's going to be more of a stole, I think, and I wanted a triangular shawl, like the arrowhead lace should have been.  So here's what I'm working on now:

This little beauty is called the Dragon Scales Shawl and I love the way the pattern is starting to emerge.  I think it's going to look great!  I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out, and if I decide I like the pattern, I might get some variegated laceweight and do another one.  It really should be done in laceweight rather than worsted like this wool is, but I wanted to use up what I had.  I like substituting needles and yarn anyway, so it's fun!

So yeah, I'm having a blast with this pattern!

Sidewalk was a blast!

As always, I loved my weekend at the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival.  It was amazing.  The movies were phenomenal, the company was awesome, and fun was had by all.  It'll take a few days for me to do reviews of all the movies we saw, but suffice it to say that several of them were the best I've seen in the four years I've been going to the festival.  I'm already excited about next year!

Sidewalk starts tomorrow!

I'll be offline for a few days because I'll be at the Sidewalk Film Festival.  This has become quite a tradition for me.  Chris and I always go to the festival and we absolutely love it!  I'm driving up tomorrow morning.  It should be a blast!

I'll post details about the weekend later.

you want me to what?

I got an email the other day from a fellow board member at the theatre.  She asked me if I would be interested in directing a show.  Huh?  I've only been doing this for a little over a year.  I actually said no, which I think surprised her because I haven't heard back.  Yes, I'd like to direct sometime, but it's important to me that I have experience doing every job before I even attempt to direct.  There's no way I'm ready for that yet.

But still... it was flattering.

Our annual party is coming up and I can't wait for it.  We always have a blast.  I'm decorating the back wall with posters from this season's plays.  It's a tradition for us to recognize the season we are ending and then we read descriptions of the upcoming season's shows.  I think it's going to be great.

We are also considering putting together a show for a one-act community theatre competition.  I hope we do it - I think it would be great.

lovely time of year

The weather is getting cooler and there is a distinctive scent in the air - the scent of Fall coming slowly to us. I love this time of year. We finally get a break in the unbearable heat of summer and enjoy wonderful days with a high of 75-80 and cool nights in the low 60s. It's awesome and I love it!

Unfortunately, the change in the weather usually makes me sick, so here I am struggling with sinusitis and an ear infection, again. But oh well... I still love this time of year!

So quick update: I've been fighting the normal post-show letdown by working on my Draha outline and trying to design a knitting pattern for a shawl. I wanted to make something to take with me to NYC when I go in Oct, in case it's chilly inside the theatre. I may not get it finished in time, but hopefully I will. Designing is fun, but complicated.

Everything is going fairly well - except that my sister's life has gotten bad again and there's absolutely nothing I can do to make it better. I have a serious problem admitting I'm powerless in any situation, so I can't stand this!

Back to regular posting now. Sorry for the long absence. Crazy life!

So sorry!

Well, it's been quite a long time since I've posted! To tell you the truth, I gave this address to some people so they could see the clips for the play and didn't want to clutter the page with posts until I knew they had a chance to see the clips. I'm sure they've seen them by now, so it's back to posting as usual! Of course, I have nothing to say, but that will come later, I'm sure...

Four Doves in a Window

Secret Drawer

The Butterfly

Never Grow Old

Yes, that's me singing.  I love, love, love this song!

Equus!

This is one thing I love about being in shows! While talking backstage with the stage manager, we discovered we had something in common - a very strong desire to see Equus when it comes to New York. We have both been reading about it a lot but neither of us thought we could go, simply because neither of us could really afford full prices on hotels in addition to the cost of tickets and flights. So anyway, we talked about it and decided to go! I bought our tickets two days ago - we fly out on October 28. It'll be a quick trip: fly up on Tuesday, see the show that night, and fly back on Wednesday, after spending a bit of time in the city. I would love to spend a little more time, but she's in school and has to get back for class that night. We will arrive early enough to get some sightseeing in that afternoon and then dinner, and will most likely go somewhere for drinks after the show. I've never done anything this spontaneous before and I'm loving it! I'm so looking forward to this trip.

Quilters wrap

Wow. I can't believe it's over. We had our last show Sunday and it was a difficult and amazing experience. I think it was our best show ever. We all got a little emotional near the end of it, which was actually appropriate because the end is rather bittersweet anyway.

I initially got involved in theatre again because I don't have a lot of local friends who are not connected to work or church. Even the people I meet through professional organizations are more work friends than "hanging out" friends. One thing I wanted to do was find some friends to keep in touch with, people to care about. Fuddy Meers gave me the chance to get to know Cathy. We have a great email friendship and serve on a committee on the board so we are staying in touch that way. I've kept in touch with Tim and Mark and Anastasia, which is wonderful because they are all great people. With Hamlet and Misery, I didn't really make new friends because I worked tech all by myself, so there wasn't a lot of interaction with everyone else. But this show.. it pretty much demands that the cast bond with each other during the rehearsal process. If there isn't a bond, the show feels wrong. We all totally bonded and by the end, when we sang about "sisters" we all really felt like family. We depended on each other, we trusted each other, and most of all, we cared about each other - and I think that will last. Dallas, Nicole, Lesley, Donna, Carolyn, Pat, Shannon, Megan, and Maribeth are all incredible people and I hope we all stay friends. It's hard to find words to describe how much I loved getting to know each cast and crew member.

Of course, even though I've never been in a show with Brenda, we've worked closely together since she is the Production Manager and I'm the Publicity Chair, so we've become friends too, which is great. Also Hilary, who I've worked with several times. Those are two awesome women!

Several of us are going to see a show in Mobile this weekend - Richard II. Hilary is stage managing the show and the guy who directed Hamlet is directing it, so it should be incredible.

That's one reason I love working with the theatre so much. I never would have met any of these incredible individuals if I had never auditioned for that first play.

But back to Quilters, it was a heck of a run and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I feel like it really helped me as an actress and a singer. It made me step out of my comfort zone and really feel the part in a way that I've never had to do before. It was a challenge, playing all those different roles and switching between them so quickly. I think the hardest part of it was going from complete tragedy to the joy of being a child in a matter of seconds. I really had a hard time with that, but I think in the end, I managed. I'll be posting some video clips from our dress rehearsal later, just in case some family and/or friends didn't get to see it and want a little taste. We didn't video the actual performances out of respect for the copyright, but we did video that last dress rehearsal so that we could see how we looked on stage and adjust things that needed to be adjusted. It was a great learning tool for me - and now I have a video keepsake of this amazing experience! The clips are a little rough, since they are of the dress rehearsal, but they are a good representation of how the show looked and sounded.

So tonight was my first night without rehearsal (well, last night, but we had a hurricane to deal with) and I'm enjoying the rest, but I really miss everyone. That's always the way it is. I did have a busy night, though. I'm working on rearranging things in my house and am trying to finish a knitting project. Tomorrow I'm going to Michael's to get a big frame for my play poster and other keepsakes. I always do a neat thing with all my stuff from a show. I'll post a picture when it's finished.

Quilters pics

Hurricane Season

It never fails. Right around the end of August, all eyes turn to the oceans and the gulf. I can't believe how crazy this year has already been, and what we are in for during the next few months. Before Katrina, hurricanes were merely an inconvenience for most of us living along the coast. But that storm opened everyone's eyes to the destruction that can happen with these storms. I'll never forget seeing the Mississippi coast after the storm. It looked like someone dropped a bomb on it or something.

Gustav was bad in Louisiana and Mississippi, but the Alabama coast was spared the worst of it. We did have tropical storm winds and a lot of rain - the river near my house was under a flood warning but I don't think it actually did flood - thank God. It was strange walking outside during the storm because the rain smelled salty, like the gulf water. I don't remember ever really noticing that during a storm before.

So now we have Hanna, Ike, and Josephine out in the ocean. I am hoping for the best, that they go out to sea and not hit land. Some of those areas on the East Coast have not had a hit for awhile, so I fear they will be unprepared.

Good luck to all coastal residents this season. I have a feeling it will be a busy one.