Kninja Knitter

How is it already the middle of July?!? I’m just stunned by this fact! Anyway, here’s my look-back on the past week.

Stitched or Still-in-Progress

I had some very busy days which resulted in less knitting time. But less is more than zero, so here’s where I ended up after the week was up. The Bling Bag that I started on Independence Day is done – or at least the knitting part is done. I still have to make the bead to hold the ties together.

The sweater saw the most love, particularly as I’m enjoying the shorter rows now. I started on the armscye shaping decreases, and in the coming week I should finish the back and start on the front.

My Camp Loopy project for July is working up nicely. I started on the mosaic color work section which will wrap up this week. Then I’ll move on to the purple lace portion of the design.

My other project that’s specific to this month is the Desert Vista Dyeworks socks that started a little late. At least I made it to the gusset increase section.

My last two active projects saw minimal attention. It doesn’t help that I don’t have a hard deadline for them and temperatures have been super-high lately (up to 93 degrees Fahrenheit or 34 degrees Centigrade). I’m very grateful for my air conditioning!! I got in a few rounds of ribbing on my mitt during a movie over the weekend.

And I just got a couple rounds in on the second sock of my peds.

This is a Year of Projects post. Officially the Group has just started its 14th year, my first. If you would like to find out more about the Year of Projects Group on Ravelry, please check it out; it’s a very welcoming group!

Movie Moments

Once again, I only made it to the theater once this week, this time to watch The Bikeriders, starring Tom Hardy, Austin Butler and Jodie Comer, and also featuring local actor Mike Faist. I was particularly interested to see this film after learning that parts of it were filmed in Ohio, mostly in Cincinnati. A friend’s brother (IIRC) is a movie grip who’s worked on a number of movies filmed around here. This week I should manage at least two, if not three movies… fingers crossed!

Bookish Banter

I had a couple solid blocks of drive time which allowed me to finish listening to the audiobook of Eruption by Michael Crichton and James Patterson. According to the “author’s notes,” Crichton’s widow had found the incomplete manuscript after his death in 2008, and she really wanted to see the story finished. After pulling together research from numerous locations, she proceeded to look for the right person to take over the project. My memory is fuzzy as to how it came to be, but I think Patterson did a great job of keeping the plot going and coming to an entertaining conclusion.

Travel Tales

I alluded to this above- on Thursday I took an afternoon off to drive to Pittsburgh for the opportunity to see The Music Man as part of the Pittsburgh CLO series featuring bigger names in musical theater. I learned about the production from Charles Esten’s Instagram post the week before as he was in rehearsals. The Nashville (TV show) actor played Harold Hill while Nikki Renée Daniels played Marian. Other highlights in the cast were the kiddos playing Tommy Djilas and Zanetta Shinn, as they had been in the ensemble of the Broadway revival cast starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster. (Would’ve loved to see them!)

Before the show there were a couple additional highlights. First, there was a barbershop quartet performing in the theater space before the production. Then, the organizers offered a pre-show talk featuring a panel of experts and specialists who discussed the topic “Exploring the cultural significance of The Music Man.” A fun fact: this show debuted on Broadway in the same year and season as West Side Story!

Of course, it took about three hours to drive out there, and a little less to get home. The trip was worth it, but not something I plan to repeat anytime soon. I am interested in a few musical theater artists scheduled to perform there later this year, so now I need to review my calendar and my budget.

Soundscape Sessions

A music-adjacent item was the annual meeting of the Gahanna Community Chorus board. This was my last meeting to officiate as I’m the outgoing president, stepping off the board after four long years helping get the organization up and running as a sustainable nonprofit. The meeting was more than two hours long as we had a lot to reflect on and celebrate, and some changes to approve to move the group forward in a more professional manner. While I am stepping off the board, I’m still a fervent advocate of the group and its programs. I’ll be shifting my focus to the Development Committee, one of the only aspects that I haven’t been directly involved with before.

Oh! One other thing for this section, though it actually came about today rather than last week: I started the work of setting up my podcast! I’ll be starting recording this week, but I signed up with the hosting platform, and I drafted my logo:

Well, that’s about all I have to share this week. It’s time to get back to my knitting!

Knit on.