Little Mermaid

Way back in November, about a week after East High finished its production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, auditions were held for The Little Mermaid. Emma (who goes by Lyn at school), really was hoping for the role of Flounder, Ariel's sidekick fish. She thought Scuttle the seagull would also be fun. She didn't get either role, and was a little bummed about that. However, what she did get was awesome. 

Emma was cast as Arista, one of Ariel's sisters. I knew that once she got going with the rehearsals she would quickly get caught up in the fun of being a part of this ensemble. I knew it would mean fabulous costumes and a really great group of girls, and some lines and even a little solo singing. I was not wrong. Of course there were some frustrating days here and there, but overall it was a great experience. 

The performances were in February - five total, including a Saturday matinee featuring all the understudies so they had a chance to shine. I had to confess to being quite impressed with Emma's solo singing lines. She did great. And the mersisters had a couple of songs with really great harmonies. Proud of my little alto! My purple-haired alto.

The most dedicated theater mom is so cute - she headed up the concessions and dressed up a few times, including as Ursula:

We had a mini EHS reunion one evening - Nick's mom Heather, Annie, mom of Scuttle, me, and Eliza all ended up at one show and spend intermission reminiscing and enjoying each other's company.

Grateful to Sam and Kathleen who made the trip from DayBreak to see the show.

In previous shows I've tried to be a little more involved with costumes and stuff like that. I could only take on a few little jobs this time since my certification exam was so close. Instead I accepted the request to make dinner on one of the long dress rehearsal nights. I always think I'm going to keep it simple and easy and it just NEVER is. There is always some disaster or another. I can't get pulled pork to pull, I spill cheese sauce all over my oven, I forget plates....whatever. It's always a stressful mess. This particular time I was really grateful that the rehearsal went long because it allowed me to rescue a few disasters. However, it did mean that the mac-n-cheese was kind of cold. So what did I do? I went and found the drama teacher's heat gun in his shop and waved it over the pans of noodles for a good 15 minutes while I was waiting for dinner to start. That was a new adventure.

As always seems to be the case, the play took up a lot of time and energy and emotion, and was simultaneously filled with joy and memory making that makes it all so much fun. 

Knitting Ups and Downs

Despite the fact that not a ton of group knitting happened on my Romney Women trip, I did bring a project with me that I made a lot of progress on. That project is a sweater for Troy. I'm so happy that Troy wants a sweater from me. You know, I actually started one for him a million years ago. It was just plain - no colorwork, no cables, no nothing. And it was so unbearably boring that I gave up on making it. Which is probably a good thing because I had never made an adult sized sweater before, and even now that I've made several I still struggle with sizing. Anyway. Troy wants a sweater and I want to make him one! 

He picked out the pattern - such a lovely cable pattern with sort of a funnel neck. I love it. And I had just the right yarn for it. It was perfect except one little thing - I had nowhere near enough yarn. I tried to convince myself that I did - the yarn came from a project that I made during the viewing of the winter Olympics in Korea...whenever that was. I remember that I wanted to make a really big scarf. But I guess I had more Olympics to watch than I realized because the resulting scarf was so ridiculously massive that I never wore it. It was too narrow for a blanket and too long for....anything. So a couple of years ago I just ripped it out, determined to find the right project for the beautiful yarn. I thought I had found it. That scarf wrapped around my torso at least twice! Surely it would be enough!

It took me almost completing the back before I had to be honest with myself and admit I didn't have enough. My plan was to go to a few yarn stores (I mean, if I had to go I just HAD to go, right?) and hunt down a really similar yarn. Turns out, that is an impossible task.

I told my fellow family knitters about this problem, we tried to come up with ideas like making the sleeves a different color or turning it into a sweater vest. My cousin Luanne and I decided that after our return to Utah we would get together to visit a new yarn shop in downtown SLC and see what we could find.

I think it was just that next week that Luanne made the trip to the valley for us to meet up and check out Handworks on Pierpont Avenue. And guess what. We found something, alright! (No, it was not the right yarn.) What we found was first, the most wonderful lovely yarn shop I've ever been to. I walked in and just about died of pure happiness and delight. Brick wall, beautiful old floor, steel beams, and best of all, a puppy. Oh yeah, and a ton of really fabulous yarn. 

 

(I added this sweater to my knit-wish list)

Second, we found that the woman behind the counter was very familiar to me - she had worked at Blazing Needles, my former LYS that closed. I was so thrilled to discover that this woman, who was by far the most helpful and knowledgeable person I'd ever been helped by, had opened this shop. She is so wonderful. So wonderful, in fact, that she was able to talk me out of trying to patch together the sleeves out of some other yarn. AND she was able to correctly guess the brand of yarn I was trying to find. She didn't carry it, but helped me find the website. Happily I went home to order the yarn!

Only....the yarn I got was so not right. Way too heavy of a yarn and totally the wrong color. I tried again. Found the right yarn, right weight....wrong color. Observe:

Time to give up. I went back to Handworks and just bought the right amount of a different yarn and started again. I'm almost done with the back again. Have I ripped out the first attempt? Not yet. I can't quite bring myself to do it. But when I do, I'll go back to my new favorite LYS (Local Yarn Shop) to ask what I can make with it.