Tuesday, November 24, 2009

It's finally December!!

Ah, I have ben waiting so so long to open my advent calendar this year! It's not just your average cheap bits of chocolate behind a door thingummy (though I got one of those too because Martin's mum is awesome), but a handmade Christmas stocking filled with individually wrapped presents! This was the most recent swap I did with my Monthly adventures group on Ravelry and my received parcel was waiting, taunting me for over a fortnight.

I made my stocking from some lovely upholstery fabric that I bought in New York about 3 years ago. I have TONS of this fabric. I have no idea why I bought quite so much, but I probably have enough to cover an armchair, then make myself a full length coat for camouflage. I will be using it up very slowly at this rate! The knitted cuff is a pattern I found on knitting-and, knitted in Patons Fairytale 4ply. I got back into practice sewing some handmade presents for it as well, due to be enjoyed later in the month by Solvi in Norway.




My return stocking arrived a couple of days after I posted that, from Julia all the way in exotic Leeds, and I LOVE it! It's insanely decorative and pointy and looks like part of a principal boy's costume!

I pulled the cracker (proper traditional cracker, with plastic toy and rubbish joke :D ) as soon as it arrived but I had to wait very patiently for the rest. I even tried prodding and squeezing packages to try and make December come quicker and I'm not usually one to do that! But I finally get to rip things open now!

I got a tube of bubbles today, and a balloon, a silly straw and a cute fabric mouse yesterday (woo, triple giftage!)






I annoyed Martin intensely by insisting on drinking everything through that straw and slurping right the way down to the end of the bottle. That photo by the way, is posed on brand new freshly assembled Ikea furniture.

After 10 months waiting, Martin's stepdad's house has sold and we have keys to a brand spanking new (built 2 years ago) duplex in Poole town centre. This house has only just gone on the market so we can be nice and leisurely about moving in, but Martin and I could move in right now if we wanted, thus a very expensive and tiring shop in Ikea for bedroom furniture (not my money - the good kind of shopping). Of course, that was before we found out that it would be January before we had Sky and internet, but it's still nice to have the furniture all set up and waiting for us. Delivery was on Monday and I have been working like a machine to get things built - all much simpler than the generally accepted Ikea stereotype, apart from the wardrobe doors. Today was a rest day to get over strained muscles and angry, confused brains. Only the bed to go tomorrow though!

Tonight I have been making Honeyed Choc chip Cookies. As ever I have overestimated the size of each cookie and they have now spread to an ever increasing cookie slab. I have made these before! Why do I not learn! sigh. Tray 2 onwards will be much smaller. I hope.

Christmas knitting update: Finished Dad's jumper - Yay! Got behind on everything else - Boo.

Friday, November 06, 2009

Gunpowder, treason and superheroes

Happy November! I love November. I get to wear lots of knitwear, I get to be excited about Christmas without people thinking I'm weird, and I love the way November smells. Is that normal?

Best of all, here in the UK, we get Fireworks Night :D Martin and I went to watch the free display over Poole harbour last night. I didn't take my camera since I was fairly sure I wouldn't be able to get any good fireworks shots, but I really really wish I had, because we were entertained by Bournemouth Carnival Band while we were waiting. 24 men, mostly a little on the chubby side, marching in formation....all dressed as Spiderman. Brilliant.

I also have a FO! The blog's been fairly slow on finished objects in the last couple of months while I've been working on Christmas gifts, but this one's for meeeee!

I was about 80% finished with my Dad's jumper by the end of October when my Mum rang up to say the measurements I was knitting to were wrong. I don't know whether she measured wrong in the summer or I wrote it down wrong from the phone conversation, but it turned out I was knitting about 5" too big, and since it was knit all in one piece with the sleeves, there wasn't anywhere I could steek it without messing up the stitch pattern. I felt like crying. I also felt like finishing it anyway and giving it to my Dad with a big tub of lard and instructions to grow into it. But, I ended up ripping it all out and starting again anyway. *sob*

In the mean time however, I took a couple of days out of my frantic Christmas knitting schedule to grumble and ignore presents and make something just for me. Stuff the consequences.

This is a Plaited Cable Cowl in Colinette Cadenza which I picked up accidentally in the yarn shop in Scotland. (yeah, the photos are pants, natural light is a bit non-existant today) I never really thought much of cowls before now, but it's very useful to have a warm neck without trailing ends while riding a motorbike. And yep, it kept me suitably toasty outside last night.




Back onto gift knitting for the next couple of months, but I'll try my best not to abandon the blog completely. The vast majority of my knitting is being kept secret from prying eyes :P, but there are still a couple of things I can show off...

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Map of the World charts

Bit of a blog experiment today. Someone on Ravely was reading about my crazy obsessive recharting of the Vogue Map of the World afghan and asked if I could put my new pattern online (the originals are painstakingly drawn out on graph paper). I've never charted anything in Excel before - not for public use anyway, I've never converted a Microsoft document to a PDF, and I've certainly never uploaded anything to be downloaded by others, so I have no idea if this is going to work at all. So, Marni (and anyone else who's interested), please let me know if this works properly.

Knittingwise, I've done about 1 and a third of the charts and I've just finished embroidering the first complete panel.



Yep, all those colourful little blobs next to Australia are the individually french-knotted island clusters of Polynesia. They don't show up on the chart I'm afraid, the whole point being that they would be smaller than a knit stitch, so you have three options

a) Find a map and go insane trying to get them as accurately placed as possible (In the absence of an atlas, I've found Wikipedia pretty useful.)

b) Forget the map and just embroider them on willy-nilly. Go crazy. Make pretty patterns. Maybe spell out some secret message in morse code.

c) Do the sensible thing and ignore the islands completely.

Ok, the original pattern is available online at Vogue, and my new charts - fingers crossed - should be downloadable here:

Map of the World Edited

Sunday, September 20, 2009

FO: Candy

I finished my jacket :D It's not perfect - I was working from my own gauge so I really should have made more of a plan before I started knitting, and I changed things and made them up as I went along - but I'm pretty darn proud of it anyway. I was mildly hungover in this photo - that's what I'm blaming for the slightly confused expression. The plastic furniture background has to be blamed on my camera, which spazzed out and over-exposed EVERY OTHER ANGLE in the garden. Hey ho.

Pattern: Based on Candy, before being fiddled around with a bit.

Yarn: 100% wool bought from the Knitting4Fun stand at last year's Woolfest.

Modifications: Well, since I changed yarn weight, pretty much the whole garment, none of which I have notes for. I added some short rows around the back and shoulders to bring the neckline up a bit, and finished off with a couple of rows of pink before casting off.
The ribbing at the bottom edge was too small to meet in the middle due to my impressive grasp of what negative ease actually means, so I had to rip back and replace it with stocking stitch with some increases over my hips. I didn't knit enough ribbing on the bottom of this bit, so if I wear it unzipped it flips up at the back. Rats.
Finally, and again because it was a little too small without, I picked up along the edges and knit a band to give myself an extra inch, and decided on a zip rather than risk it straining and gapping around buttonholes. It is...not as easy as it should be to guess how long a finished zip band is going to be when you're deciding when to cast off the main body. Makes it somewhat awkward when zips only come in certain lengths. So yeah, it's a little longer than it should be and makes weird angles at the top and bottom. Who cares. I shall wear my first finished jacket with pride anyway.

(and the next one will be better thought out)

Sunday, September 13, 2009

FO: Oliver Theo's Baby gifts

I have decided that I love making baby garments. I am going to start locking all the couples I know in cheesy lurve boudoirs until somebody else gets pregnant.

These are all knit in Rowan Extra fine Merino DK, which I think is discontinued now. Dang. I'm sure they have something similar though. The cardigan is based on Daisy, done in 2 row stripes (which I LOVE, no more ends to weave in!), with a moss stitch border added at the end.


The leftovers went into Seamless baby booties...

...and an improvised top down hat. I did initially start with a bottom up hat with a roll up brim which was fairly stupid as I used so much yarn on the brim that I ran out of green while I still had a bald patch sized hole to fill in. Top down makes much more sense. Plus my hat has a nipple.
*snigger*

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Lulworth Castle

The Boyfriend and I spent last Sunday at Lulworth Castle catching one of the last summer jousting shows (*GASP! We left the house! We went outside and saw real life people!). I think I must have been spoiled by castle trips as a kid because Lulworth is rather heavily restored and I kinda feel cheated if a castle is more pine floors and plaster and double glazing than teeny spiral staircases and massive holes everywhere. Perhaps that's just me. Having said that, we had great fun on the outside of the castle. We wandered around the animal farm while waiting for the show to start, where among the pygmy pot bellied pigs (very cute, but rubbish at posing for photos) and many many peacocks, they had angora goats...


...and llamas.


...Or possibly alpaca. I couldn't find a sign and I don't know the difference.

We also had a go at the archery which I thought I was doing pretty well at when I had two arrows on the target and Martin was still shooting clouds and grass, but then he got into his stride and shot it three times in succession. Smug feeling gone. Dang it.

And then, at 12 o'clock, the knights!


who wore shiny lamé 'armour' and had heroic hair!


and galloped toward each other with big sticks!


and rode backwards and occasionally upside down on their horses!


and thwacked each other with wooden swords!

The blue knight is the bad guy by the way (obviously, he doesn't have Hero hair), but he got kicked in the balls at the end of the routine, so everything turns out for the best. It was horrendously cheesy and utterly utterly brilliant. Worth the price of admission by itself. Martin now wants me to make him a knight costume because he is 12.

In other news, my uncle emailed me a few days ago to say my cousin Laura has popped and she's given birth to a gorgeous baby boy called Oliver Theo. I finally got round to sewing the buttons on my cardigan yesterday (it had been sitting buttonless for about a week after sewing in all the ends annoyed me enough to shove it in a bag and forget about it), I've made some matching booties and today I'm finishing it off with a matching hat. Oliver's the first baby in the family and my first opportunity to knit baby clothes and they are soooo adorable. I keep catching glints of terror in the boyfriend's eyes when I squee over them.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Angus disapproves



Meet Angus the Angry Squid. Angus is 2 months old and lives in the wilds of Hamworthy. He likes curried eggs, America's Next Top Model and singing opera in the shower. He dislikes everything else.




This is Hansi Singh's Squid-a-licious pattern knit in leftover Cascade from my stripy jumper for my darling boyfriend (he was the advance guard, to make sure Martin's bedroom was liveable before I moved in)
The pattern is great - I bought 4 of hers and will at some point get round to making another one for myself - the only change I made was to stitch down a little ridge between the eyes and chain stitch on some eyebrows.

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

New additions to the sock drawer

Originally this was just going to be a post of my completed toe-up socks, but then I finished my Jaywalkers yesterday, so I have twooooooooooo pairs! Woohoo!

I finished these just before I moved, just very plain vanilla stocking stitch socks in Regia 4ply Surprise Colour. They're my first toe-up socks, using Amy Swenson's Universal Toe-up Sock Formula and they fit perfectly round the foot, but the short row toe is kinda huge, so I don't think I'd use it for anything with a stitch pattern. My cast off is a little too tight too, so I'll use a sewn cast off next time.

My Jaywalkers are made in Noro Kureyon Sock, a gift from a Monthly Adventures swap. I like the pattern, but not too keen on the yarn. I love love love the colours, but the quality isn't great, much the same complaints as I've read from other people about Noro yarns. It's very scratchy to knit with, though it does soften up considerably after washing, and the way it's spun or...plied or...something (yeah, I'm not a spinner) makes it very tight and prone to twisting up in my hands. I managed to snap two needles while knitting these socks. Oh, and I found a knot halfway through the second sock which was tied to the wrong colour in the sequence. Gah. Shame Noro do such pretty colours. I guess until I can afford the lovely handpainted luxury sock yarns I shall stick to nice practical cheap (machinewashable) Regia.

Just a quick note about the new pair of socks I started last week. These are Cut & Paste socks in more Regia (bright, bright red Silk 4ply this time), and the toe on these starts from Judy's magic cast on. This technique is GENIUS. That is all.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

I am back! And grrrrraduated.

Look! I'm a real grown up person! I graduated...err...a month ago and got to ponce around in an unflattering gown at silly o'clock in the morning. Wheeee! Just what I've always wanted!

The month since has been somewhat blah, jobsearching is sucking at my soul and because the jobcentre is run by robot monkeys I'm not eligible for job seekers allowance. But hey, I have a lovely (and highly convenient) boyfriend and he has a lovely mother who doesn't want to charge me more than enough to cover the extra food in rent, so I have a place to stay until I find a job and a flat of my own.

(See, if I call it 'a place to stay' rather than 'living with my boyfriend' it's a lot less scary.)

All my worldly possesions, aside from a few clothes and the essential 8 or 9 knitting projects, are now in storage, including my poor neglected sewing machine, which got one last outing after uni to finish my dress for the graduation ball.


This is the best photo I've got of the dress, which is the one that was originally intended for Nancy and Olly's wedding last year before the previous sewing machine blew up. Or possibly just stopped sewing. I forget. It's a shame I didn't get a better picture of all the gathering on the bodice (it took me long enough), but apparently I was more focused on getting drunk and grinning/grimacing like a loon for the camera to get a good shot from the neck down. I think it was worth it. Although, the celebratory amounts of alcohol made it all the more confusing and disturbing when the dancing dwarves came on stage. I know I wasn't imagining this - I found photographic evidence the next day. Also, I'm wearing my Mia! At last!

The other costumes I made last month, for the other ball (yes I got two :D ), were somewhat less sophisticated. These were for the Summer ball held by the Bournemouth University - they kindly allow us Arts Institute types to latch onto their social events like creative little barnacles. My boyfriend and I went this year as the Queen and the Prince from Katamari Damacy/We Love Katamari. I'm not quite sure how to explain this. Katamari is a bizarre Japanese Playstation game in which you roll a ball around picking up things and making the ball grow bigger so you can pick up bigger things. And...um...that's all there is to it. And I love it intensely.


Anyhoo, I found some patterns online and I sent the link to Martin in an 'OMG, look at these, they are so hilariously weird' moment thinking nothing more of it and he came back with 'summer ball costumes please'. Who am I to deny a request for giant knitted earmuffs from my beloved?


I feel I have to add that this was ALL his idea, right down to the green shorts and lovely purple tights. I'm fairly convinced no one had a clue who we were. I did get one high five from a stranger but I think it was because he thought had a pair of boobs strapped to my head.
I can see why he thought that.

Stay tuned (maybe) for new socks! The whole of south east Asia! And the other new resident of Martin's bedroom!

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Knitting socks in the costume show is apparently a tradition of mine

I am spending this week relaxing after a hectic weekend putting on the end of year costume and acting show at the Lighthouse Theatre (and going to the Summer Ball, for which I have the most ridiclous finished objects to show, once I find pictures). It was utterly exhausting, early mornings (getting to the theatre at 830am), late nights (leaving again at 1030pm) and frantic moments of trying to get 2 hours of sewing done in 20 minutes when three quarters of the sewing team haven't bothered to show up, but I got the last evening off to watch the performance and it was really good, so totally worth it. Plus! in between frantic repairs and alterations there were hours and hours of NOTHING to do, so I have finished my first Noro Jaywalker :D

And what's more, I have started the second one! I am NOT going to let this pair languish for a year like the last ones.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

The Oh-my-god-I-must-be-freakin'-insane project

Obviously the huge pile of current WIPs from the last post isn't enough for me because I'm planning to embark on the most ridiculously complicated project I've ever considered. I've been listening to the Craftlit podcast recently - audiobooks are very good for handsewing I've found - and Heather mentioned that she was working on Vogue's Map of the World Afghan (actually she mentioned this in a podcast from about 3 years ago - I have quite a bit of catching up to do). I wanted to see what it looked like so I looked it up on Ravelry, and yes, it is an entire map of the world charted in blanket form:
And then I discovered that Vogue Knitting have it online for free and I started thinking about it. I'm not sure why, I don't even really like how it's styled. I like the bright colours in the countries but I think it's kind gaudy in the edges, and I really don't like the points and tassels, but I couldn't get it out of my head for some reason. Aaaand then I started looking at suitable yarn substitutes and found Debbie Bliss Donegal Aran Tweed as a perfect British alternative. And then I was kinda sorta looking up how much donegal tweed cost, just to kill time you understand, and I found out there were a lot of shades recently discontinued and now on sale on various websites for about half price, and, well...I cracked.

Yup, that's a LOT of yarn. But to be fair, this is probably going to occupy me for about 10 years, so a complete bargain really (off topic, I was saying this to my boyfriend as I was paying for it and he said "you know, you really don't need to justify your yarn purchases to me". I am going to marry this man*) The colours are a leetle bit brighter than the picture, but not quite so obnoxiously luminous as the original. The pack of natural coloured yarn at the front is for the edges, and I'm going to leave off the points and just finish it as a rectangle with a non-curling border. Of course, now that I HAVE all the yarn, I won't be casting on a single stitch for at least a month because

a)I am overcomplicating things slightly. For a normal, sane person, this is a great chart, but...err...I have a tendency to get a little...anal about detail. I could see straight away that I wasn't happy with the shape of some of the countries, Britain and Italy for example, and in a few places they'd lumped smaller countries together, for example, they have Central America as one country rather than eight. As I've started going over the chart I've found some really strange mistakes. Not only have they stuck countries together, they've split countries in half. They have actually added fictional borders into this map. I don't understand why they would do that.

Yeah, I know, this makes me crazy obsessive.

b)I'm in way over my head here. I don't know how to do intarsia. I don't just mean I've never done intarsia, I've never done fair isle, but at least I know the theory behind it. I have absolutely no idea where to even start with intarsia. It scares me slightly. Nice simple project to start off with then.

c) Oh yeah, and there's the other 11 projects already on the go. Best start knitting faster.


*No Mother, that is not your cue to buy a hat.

Monday, May 11, 2009

2 days to go!

I am two days away from the end! Not, I hasten to add, two days away from poncey gowns and mortarboards, I still have a little while to mentally prepare myself for that anguish, but my final deadline of the degree (CVs, portfolios and a lovely long evaluation about how wonderful the course is) is on Thursday. I had my big scary finished garments hand in 2 weeks ago, so this one isn't worrying me half as much, and I've been able to knit away to my heart's content in between preparing my portfolio and rather half-heartedly looking for jobs.

Ooh! And the costume I just handed in? Not only is it by far my best work, but I've been told by my Head of Costume that it's one of the best pieces he's seen ON THE ENTIRE COURSE. I am slightly swept away in a tidal wave of Smug right now. (Photos to come in a few weeks, gotta get a good photoshoot for this one)


And onward to knitting...


I have actually cast on at least 6 new projects since I last blogged, but in an effort not to make this post explode with images, I may leave those until later and catch up on some extremely late finished objects.



I finished my stripy jumper! About 6 months ago! (this is how behind on blogging I am) This marks a milesone for me. It isn't the first full size garment I made (that was the blue green and purple acrylic blob), nor is it the first jumper I've made that fit me (that was Tempting), but it is the first full size jumper I've made that fit me and STILL FITS AFTER BEING WASHED!! Huzzah, success at last! I love it, as you can probably tell from my out of focus grin. Ms. Walker is a genius and I look forward to making more garments from Knitting From the Top, though probably not any of the various styles of knitted trousers.

Just before finishing my (incredibly cartoonish) stripy jumper, I made a Kombu scarf from the Manos silk blend I bought in Scotland. I love this pattern, though...err...it possibly would benefit from something a little less drapey in terms of yarn.




The second scarf I made was for a two part swap over at the Monthly Adventures group on Ravelry, the idea being that we sent someone a skein of yarn (along with some presents for them), then they used that yarn to knit a scarf and sent it back. I ended up being paired with Twinsmama a second time for this one! She sent me 2 gorgeous malabrigo skeins which I used to make her a Reversible Cabled Brioche Stitch Scarf. This is another great scarf pattern, it has all the flat, reversible, extra squishy benefits of ribs, with added pretty cables all over it. 'Tis a good thing she picked pink yarn or I would have been sooo tempted to keep this for myself. But I did get a lovely lacy chevron scarf back from her so I don't mind too much!



Last minute Christmas presents! These were for a couple of my friends from university who unexpectedly gave me presents at the last minute (eep). Thems on the left are Fetchings, the most popular project on ravelry, for good reason. I think I finished those in one day. Thems on the right I designed myself :D Yup, I made charts'n'everything. I'm currently reknitting these as full mittens with some minor tweaks to the cable, then 'll write out a pattern. (Though it might make more sense if I waited until after the summer. Maybe)




Last one! This is the Limerick Moss Cap in mmmmmmMalabrigo, one of the lovely presents Twinsmama sent me in the scarf swap. According to my project page, this is the last item I finished knitting and I remember wearing it on my birthday. *sigh* that's over 4 months without a single finished item.
Hmm. So much for not having a picture heavy post.
Never mind. Just to cap it off, this is my small selection of current works in progress:

Hmm. I may be overcompensating for the last 4 months...
P.S. I did go and see the turtles at Weymouth in the Easter holidays, they are unbelivably cute! I think they're actually terrapins though. Bah. False advertising. But they are (were) about an inch long and thoroughly confused by the mirrored sides of the tank which more than made up for it.
P.P.S. I also went up to Wembley Arena the day after my final fitting to see the Prodigy play live :D (yes, I took 2 whole days off when making this costume). The Prodigy are, it has to be said, not as cute as baby terrapins, but they do set off this bizarre reaction in me that makes me dance like a broken marionette having an epileptic fit while stone cold sober. I am still on a high from this gig. Though I may remember to wear a sports bra if I ever see them again
P.P.P.S. I finally got round to casting on my second toe up sock, on the same needles, with the same number of stitches, only to find that my guage has somehow changed in the last 6 months. Well, bugger.

Saturday, April 04, 2009

I <3 Bosch

I thought I had better write a quick post before it gets to another 2 months with no word. 1930s suit finished and apparently performed in, but they didn't start the dress rehearsals til I was already gone, so I didn't get to see it. Shame. Currently my life is being consumed by this:

Anyone who has done dressmaking might know what a pain in the arse normal jetted pockets are, but curved ones? with 4mm jets? Oh my God. I must be insane. I have my next fitting in 12 days, and because it is now the Easter holidays, only 2 of those days are in uni. So, to make up for my withdrawal symptoms and rubbish home equipment I bought myself a very sexy new iron. It's sleek and black and so powerful I just set off the smoke alarms cleaning it, and it depresses me how excited I am by something that is really just a shiny, expensive LAUNDRY APPLIANCE. This is apparently how I spend the money that normal students spend on clothes and alcohol.
So that's taking up 95% of my waking hours right now, though in my 2 week easter break I have given myself one whole day of free time - I am allowing my boyfriend too drive me to Weymouth on Monday to see the new baby turtles at the sealife centre :D (*squeeeeeeal)
Other than that, I've been keeping myself (almost) sane with a couple of rows now and then on Candy, in the Knitting4Fun yarn I bought at Woolfest. It seems to be a little small at the moment. It is supposed to be knit with negative ease, but I may have overdone it slightly. Oh well, I can always add a massive buttonwrap.


So that's it. I'm well aware that I still haven't shown off my Christmas knitting, or even my finished-months-before-Christmas knitting,but I am also well aware that my degree will be finished in less than 2 months and sadly knitting is not much of a priority. But hey, there's every possiblity that when I graduate I'll be unemployed and living in a box, so I'll have all the time in the world for knitting and blogging!
Fingers crossed.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

IT LIVES!! Again. Ahem. Excitement over.

There has been a shortage of pie and handkerchiefs in the world of late. I feel this needs to be remedied. Everyone needs pie and handkerchiefs. Handkerchiefs are useful, and pies are......well pies are pies. They need to exist just to make the world a better place. Plus my mother keeps complaining that she doesn't know what I'm doing because I haven't been blogging. I apologise profusely, Mother.

Sometimes I think this blog has had so many near-death experiences that it must be developing a pathological fear of bright lights.

Third year coursework has been busy kicking my arse, as is only fitting I suppose, and continues to do so. I was ever so slightly correct when I predicted that I had bitten off more than I could chew in the last unit. About halfway through the unit my tutors and I decided I had too much work to do so the baggy, frilly, knee-length jumpsuit got cut. Shame. Anyhoo, they did get finished:

Well. Ish. That there jacket would hang a lot better if it had actual buttons and buttonholes rather than pins, but they still haven't seen fit to teach us how to use the keyhole buttonhole machine and won't accept them with straight ones, so we have to just wait for our technician to do them for us. Which she still hasn't. *sigh*

I'm currently about a week away from finishing the first costume of two for my final major project, which is a 1930s two piece suit and shirt for a BA Acting production of 'They Shoot Horses, Don't They?'. Very excited about this one, as far as I know, it's the only production that the acting course is puting on for a paying audience, in an actual Bournemouth theatre rather than university studio space, and I've somehow ended up making the costume for the male lead. There are 8 of us making costumes for this play and we're working directly with the designer and director in our own little production studio. Ah, it's almost like real life. Except I sort of hope I will be paid in real life. Our payment for this is 2 free tickets which I'm very disappointed to find I won't be able to use as I'm in America again the week the play's running. Dammit. I'm hoping to sneak into a dress rehearsal before I go.

In my very, very limited free time, there has been knitting, which I will show off at some unspecified future date. There are gifts, and warm weather woolies, and an ACTUAL GARMENT, which I have been ACTUALLY WEARING.

Exciting, huh?

Rightyho, I am off to turn up my cuffs.

My life is so fun.