the nursery

When my parents brought us all home from the hospital last week, my father took a panorama of the nursery, with our new little family. We can't remember how to post panoramas on the blog, so you'll have to click here.

(We're a little distorted; you'll have to squint and be understanding.)

nesting

The nursery is slowly coming together. You could say that one side of the room is done. The other 3/4 of the room... well, maybe next weekend.Christopher's friend Derek came over yesterday and did various handy tasks for us, like install some lights over the changing pad and hang our baby hammock. We've gotten a lot of flak from our families about the hammock, but we remain confident that it will work for us and for Smudge. It's got a really great swaying and bouncing thing going on, and we hear that babies sleep really well in them.

I have so many things to share, but I seem to be rather passive with my camera recently, so until it's photographed in some decent daylight, the blogging will have to wait. In other news, as of today I am 37 weeks pregnant, which means that the baby is ready. He isn't due for 3 more weeks, but really he could come at any time. wow.

clutter

Thank you all for your wonderful wishes! It is so warming to hear your enthusiasm, and I look forward to sharing the next 6 (and more!) months with you as Smudge and I grow!

-

This summer, along with battling eye ailments and morning sickness, we have taken on our apartment. You may remember the leaks in our windows... well, the building took its time fixing the leaks, and repairing the windows. After about 6 weeks of never knowing when a construction worker would knock on our door, the windows were done. The whole thing was a struggle, and involved me spending lots of time on the phone with the building manager, the super and my neighbors while at Haystack.

Since the apartment was already in chaos, we decided to have the floors in two rooms redone while we were in Maine. This involved moving all of our bedroom and office furniture (and art supplies and papers and files and filing cabinets) into the living room before we left. Which was alright.

We returned home to a fabulous new floor, with lots of expert patching that we hadn't expected, even in rooms that weren't supposed to be touched. Our floor guy just couldn't help himself. LOVE HIM.This is a spot where the boards had been patched before, but they all went vertically. Though the floor guy and I looked at this in our walk through, I didn't actually think he'd replace the boards and try to match the walnut border.

In any case, the past two weeks have been all about putting the furniture back.

What was the bedroom will become the baby's room, though for now Christopher will use it as a work space. This is the temporary office. We thought a single bed might be useful in the baby's room, since Christopher is such a light sleeper.

And what was the office will be/is our bedroom.

Sounds simple, except for all of the office and art supplies that we used to have a place for. While we organize our bedroom and the baby's room, the living room holds my filing cabinet (in pieces), drafting table (in pieces) and books.It's overwhelming. It's slow going. I am tempted to throw it all away.

lack of distractions

Sometimes it seems like life just takes over and there's no time for the fun stuff. I mean, on a normal day (meaning most days before June) I had things to fill in the gaps, things that I did to entertain myself and take the edge off the problems in my life. Like knit. Or spin. Or go to see a play. But since we got back from Italy it's been all about unfun things, like going to the eye doctor again. Or getting a second opinion. Or moving all of our furniture so the contractors can work on our windows. It's so full of this stuff that I don't even miss knitting. That's how bad it is.

Our windows. I have mentioned on various occasions that they leak. Well, the leaks were supposedly fixed on more than one occasion over the past 6 months. June has been rainy and it seemed to have been fixed, so we gave the go ahead for our building to bring someone in to replace the rotten sills in our living room and bedroom.Christopher and I moved the furniture away from the problem windows, so it wouldn't get dust and grime on it. Most of the side tables and laundry baskets, the TV, our mattress all were moved into other rooms.

We were told it would take 2 days to rip out and replace the window frames.Thursday was a rainy day, and soon after the first frame had been torn off, water started pouring in from above. The contractor finished his destruction, cleaned up and left. There is no point in him putting new sills on until the leak is located. That was almost a week ago.Today, at last, the management company informed us that they finally got a hold of the people who had originally "fixed" the leak. Hopefully they'll come soon to "fix" the current leaks. I have little faith, since they have been here numerous times and still haven't fixed anything.

And in the meantime, since we are dealing with 3 windows that are oozing dust and mildew, we are living out of boxes and sleeping on our mattress on our floor. So depressing. I'm going away tomorrow, and then Christopher will be left to deal with this situation. I hope he doesn't have to suffer too much longer.

-

In eye news, I got a second opinion. The general consensus is that I should wait and observe it for about a month, and then possibly have surgery. I can't get a straight answer from the doctor's office about what the surgery entails, and I am hoping that they decide it's not necessary. But I won't know that until I get back in mid-July.

In more positive news, I am heading to Maine for two weeks for a quilting workshop. I'm super psyched to get away, though I feel bad about leaving Christopher with the mess of our apartment.

self cure

We've been slowly working on our apartment. I bought myself a new computer desk on Craigslist, and on Tuesday I put it together and cleared a space for it in the den. The reasoning behind this was to get the taxes done, and though it took a while, yes, I made some progress on that too. The rest of the room is still in progress, so it's not worth showing just yet. Hopefully this weekend we'll finish moving everything around and I can begin to settle into my new work space. I have hopes of artistic inspiration once the clutter has been removed.

The economy has been really getting me down recently. The play I recently designed closed, and I have just one more project coming up. I don't blame myself for this lack of work. In fact, everyone I know is slowing down and reevaluating what they'll do next. Last Saturday I had a meeting for my new project, and afterwards I hung out a little with the sound designer, who I have worked with twice before and am thrilled to be working with again. We were in Williamsburg and he followed me up to The Yarn Tree, where I bought some bamboo roving.

Broadway seems to be doing very well, and I'm not sure why. It's the little shows that are suffering, the ones dependent on funders for donations in order to survive. Non profits. This sound designer said that 6 companies that he worked with last year have now folded or lost their spaces, and are no longer producing. He also said that he did something like 25 projects last year, a mixture of assisting and designing, and now he only has a handful coming up. 2 projects that I thought I'd be doing were either postponed or downsized, pushing me out. We both found this terrifying.

The upswing of this, what seems to be in the air these days in the arts community, is that this might be a time for us to try something new. This sound designer was talking about how he'd always wanted to compose music, and now he has the time. I've wanted to try illustration (yes, and quilting and other fibery things).

Or perhaps we'll see unusual collaborations. Once we take the money aspect out of a theater project (ie someone hires you to do their project, and then they sell tickets) perhaps things can be a little more democratic and more interesting. "WPA" seems to be on everybody's tongue. I am not sure that the US government is about to give money for theater development this time around (though it would be wonderful if it did). But perhaps slow times call for self-motivation.

the furniture dance (part 1)

You may remember a few weeks back, when I'd decided to to the Apartment Therapy Cure. Curers (curees?) can opt between the Deep Therapy or One Room cure, and instructions are found both in the official Apartment Therapy Cure book and on the site, where there's currently an 8 week Cure-Along taking place.

I borrowed the book from Terra this week, and skimmed through it fairly quickly. There are some really interesting ideas, and a lot about just slowing down and decluttering. I could use some serious decluttering; the advice about cooking at home is a little less necessary, seeing as I do that regularly anyway. But the book is really about how to love and use your home, and not just inhabit it.

We have plans to refinish the floors in our bedroom and office sometime in the next few months, so it seemed silly to cure those rooms. I quickly decided to focus on our "den," which has become less of a den and more of an office/fiber space for me. My thought is to make it mine, since I use the room more than Christopher does, and it seems to be taken over with my knitting anyway.

Quick history:

May 2007We once had a sofa in here, and it made more sense as a den. I would set up here and watch TV and knit, or maybe we'd watch an episode of Six Feet Under together. (this was before our Netflix subscription.)This is the view looking the other direction. Clearly this was right after the room was set up; there still aren't any books on the shelves.

In the following two years, we have moved the sofa to the living room, where it creates a very nice L with our other sofa, and the cat has claimed this room for herself. It's also become a bit of a dumping ground when we're cleaning up, since it's conveniently located right next to our living room. We've also gotten a nicer TV, which means that we're more likely to watch things (ie Netflix movies) together. Unfortunately, all there is to sit on is the office chair and that white armchair, which is now covered in cat hair.
If you are still reading this, you might see what I'm talking about. Time to throw stuff away.

This room is also mostly about my knitting and my computer, so it would make sense to move my desk and drafting table in from the office, where it's mostly in the dark. Plus Christopher flees every time I try to work in there. I see no point in sharing the work space with him if he's unable to work with me in the room.

Other than putting the old stuff on the curb, I have declared that the TV has to be moved out. Our den is no longer good for watching TV, but the living room is.
So TV and TV cabinet will go into living room, in a space currently occupied by a cabinet housing our linens. This cabinet will be moved into our bedroom. Once this happens there will be little access to the secretary, so it will also be moved. At the moment we want to put it where this mirror is (across the room) though I'm sorry to see the mirror leave the living room, and that corner might start to feel heavy.
On the other hand, it might be a nice little desk/bill paying space, and could work nicely.

There is more planned, but this is the first part of our renewal. I also need to think about how my new work space will function and how to organize it without overfilling it with stuff (which I have a lot of).

disappearing act

wow. I've been AWOL again, haven't I?

sigh. What can I say?

I opened my latest show last night, a gay adaptation of Hedda Gabler entitled Henri Gabler. It's an interesting concept, and the set was fun to design and put together. Really it's fairly simple: a green floor, and a wall of 4" plastic refrigeration strips hung a few feet from the back wall. The strips create some really great reflections, and the floor glows. Very cool.I'm beginning to emerge and restart my other life (the non-designer part). It's always so disappointing to go back to work after doing my theater thing intensely for a chunk of time. I always use this period to notice everything that's wrong with my life: the lack of storage space in our bedroom, the dust bunnies under the dining table, the clutter on and around my desk. The room where I have my computer and my knitting stuff has become a dump of sorts, and it's no good.

I clicked over to Apartment Therapy this morning and discovered that they're doing their Cure once again. I think it might be good incentive to clean up and organize at least one of our rooms. Terra has agreed to loan me their Cure book, so I'll begin next week, a week or two late but whatever. At least I'm trying to do something about the clutter. And maybe once that's gone the rest of my life will feel more organized too.

the pre-holiday weekend

I have something to admit: We haven't done any holiday preparation. In fact, we've only really thought about Christmas shopping; very little has been purchased. We have no tree, and only a decoration here or there.

This weekend was going to remedy that. I was going to bake Christmas cookies, and get a tree and put up lights. We were going to take control of our Christmas lists. None of that has happened.

Instead, we worked on our kitchen.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. We started renovating it almost 2 years ago, and though we've come a long way, we still had a lot still to do. Here is what it looked like when we moved in:We replaced the cabinets and tore out the soffit as soon as we could. The rest of the work- tiling, replacing the appliances and painting- has taken longer. You may remember that my father tiled one side of the kitchen a few months back.

Here is what we did this weekend:

Christopher sanded. I primed the area across from the fridge with special magnetic paint. 3 coats.Christopher primed the areas where the soffit had been.I tiled the other side of the kitchen (above the sink) & Christopher painted the kitchen. (there aren't any action shots of me tiling; you'll just have to notice that this is now tile where there was not.)He's actually still painting it, but I'm done with the tiling (for now, it still needs grout). I should move on to writing Christmas cards. Or to reading a play that I've just agreed to work on. But I'm up for a break, and I'd still like to make those cookies...

ongoing

Thank you all for your support with the Metropole. I guess I wasn't clear; I'd already washed and blocked what I'd knitted, and those were the measurements I'd gotten. I think I'm going to knit a larger size, as suggested by Lisa. If I go up yet another needle size, I'll end up with a coat that doesn't do much to keep out the wind. I also hope I can use the gauge information that I now know in order to make the appropriate adjustments when knitting the next size up. Oh, it will be hard to motivate on this yet again.

I've basically given up on gift knitting. I still have plans to make some very cute mittens for my other nephew, but I haven't found the right yarn yet. (I actually haven't looked, but I know my local yarn store doesn't have what I want, so again this requires motivation.)

The real reason that I've not started on these mittens (which I know will be very fast to knit), is because I've started some new mittens for myself (Vinterblomster mittens by Heidi Mork), and I'm totally addicted to them. (Some people love knitting socks; I love knitting mittens.) I'm just about done the first one, and I've sworn that when that is done I'll make the Christmas mittens.

Our leaky windows are being fixed! Some contractors arrived yesterday and set up some scaffolding, and I woke up this morning to banging. They apparently have to take off some of the brick above the problem windows. I'm a little nervous that they'll break something, but for now I've just closed the curtains and let them do their thing. I wonder what will happen when the snowstorm hits this afternoon. I can't imagine they'll work through it...

Sundayness

I've been having issues motivating recently. Both this weekend and the last one have been washes in terms of getting things done. Real things, I mean. Knitting doesn't count. On the list have been Christmas shopping, Christmas cards, house cleaning (mopping would be nice), and general maintenance. So far this weekend, I've hemmed curtains and hung a shade in our den. That took maybe an hour. (I left the sewing machine out with the idea that I'll do some more fun sewing projects, but somehow I think that mopping might be more important.)

Christopher and I took a very pleasant walk to the hardware store today, where we got paint for our kitchen. This is the last room in our apartment to paint, and it will be a relief to have the years of food oil streaks painted over (is that TMI?). I also need to finish tiling the back splash, but that might take more motivation than I've got a the moment.

Anyway, my reason for blogging today: the coat that I'm knitting, Metropole, still has the wrong gauge. I seem to be knitting it at a tighter gauge than I knit swatches. I need 3.5 stitches per inch, which translates to 7 stitches to 2" or 14 stitches for 4". I'm getting 14.5 stitches for 4". Minimal, right? Well, it's supposed to be 23" wide at the bottom, and it's 21.5".
The waist should be 17", but it's 16". Either I have to frog and reknit it again, or I need to make the front really big, or... I'll have a coat that is too small for me. It does knit up fairly quickly, but man, I'd like to move out of the washing and measuring stage. Ideas?

Chinese water torture

Our windows leak, but we mostly see evidence of it only when there is a real soaking rain. The rains on Wednesday and Thursday were hard enough to seep through and stain the shade in our bedroom, and it dripped enough that we put out bowls to catch the water on Thursday night. The dripping sounds weren't so bad, or maybe I was just really tired. I remember sleeping terribly the first time this happened. Maybe it's just peace of mind; on Monday our Board approved repairs to our lintels. This may be the last rain storm that we experience in our bedroom.

I have been really non-committal about knitting Christmas presents this year, but my sister-in-law sent an email yesterday with their Christmas wishes, and on the list was a bib for her almost 6 month old baby, Alden. I set to work immediately, grabbing some yarn I've had forever. I'm not really sure what it is or where it came from; perhaps it's Debbie Bliss Cotton DK? In any case, it worked perfectly. The bib pattern was so quick and fun; I clearly need to make bibs for all the babies I know.

Pattern: Modern Cable Baby Bib by Gibsongirl
Yarn: I think it's Debbie Bliss Cotton DK in stone
Needles: #8

two steps back

My final show for awhile opened on Wednesday, which means that my schedule has, or is about to, free up considerably. I feel like I should be a little nervous about the lack of work ahead, but to be honest I'm completely thrilled to be able to relax a little. Let's just hope that I don't get bored...

My dad came up yesterday to do some work on our apartment. Really we just needed him to finish patching the wall in our den, so we can paint it and send back all of the construction equipment that's been sitting in there. But the patch job turned into a realization that the molding in the den is warped and probably needs to be replaced, which is bigger project than we wanted to take on.

Outside of the kitchen, I pulled off a few feet of molding that didn't cover the whole wall, with the idea to replace it with something that went all the way around, only to discover that the plaster under the molding is rotten and needs to be redone. Dad put a few pieces of new molding on before he left, but the wall still needs work. I guess this is what happens when you get a place that has "character..."

a cat with taste

This is Dinah.If there's one thing you should know about Dinah, it's that she's obsessed with being brushed. Some cats like catnip; Dinah likes her brush. If you can imagine, she has the same out of control-drugged out response to the brush as other cats do to catnip.

This is a piece of artwork that Christopher's friend Derek made many years ago. You will notice that looks a little like a large dust brush, but with pencils instead of bristles.

Dinah has just discovered it on its shelf, and she now spends many hours pining for it from atop the sofa.
Let's hope she doesn't actually pull it down and impale herself on it.

over too soon

This weekend has just flown by. I had great plans to dedicate myself to developing my two rapidly approaching designs, but my father came up to tile our kitchen and the designing just didn't happen. He's gone now, and I'll take a few hours tonight to at least make a dent on what needs to happen. And I'll probably take the day off from work tomorrow. Time to prioritize.

Good things did happen this weekend, number one being the tiles for our back splash. I think we put backer board up for that last summer, but then with our ebay tile fiasco and our feeling of frustration after that, the tile project got dropped. In July we decided to bite the bullet and order what we really wanted, even though they were expensive. (Unfortunately, we realized today that due to a brain fart I only ordered half as much as we need, so tomorrow I've got to call and get more. Argh.)

Ok, before: Since I didn't order enough tile, this actually still looks the same... we tiled the other side of the kitchen.

And after:Looks like I'll be grouting them myself sometime this week. Yes, I can grout tiles. Random skill I've picked up over the years.

The other major accomplishment for the weekend was replacing some shelving in the office/studio. We bought a modular shelving system a few weeks ago at the new Ikea in Brooklyn, but they were out of the feet, so we couldn't put it together until now (when my dad brought feet from the Philadelphia Ikea. Thanks for the runaround, Ikea.)

This is a photo of my work space that I took about a year ago. I know, it's a total cluttered mess. And this is after I've cleaned up and am actually working in it.Note the wooden shelves on the far right, the ones that look like they belong in a garage or basement. Note that they are also tipping precariously forward, like they might want to fall on you when you're not paying attention.

And these are the new shelves that we just got. They have a much smaller footprint and also there's a big shelf at eye height for my models. When I lived on the Lower East Side (I moved away in Jan 2004), I had a big shelf next to my drafting table for my models and it was SO GREAT. Since then I've improvised, and it's not so great. You can see a little model taking up precious table space above. Totally in the way.
Maybe I need to buy some of those matching storage boxes or something. This is not so aesthetically pleasing...

Anyway, working on the apartment is positive, but the changes also bring intense cleaning and sorting (today I actually went through a box that I packed when I moved back in 2004. very satisfying!), and we just don't have time for that this weekend. I want to get rid of this clutter, but the more I do the worse it seems to be. Would another Ikea trip help? or is buying little matching boxes part of the problem...

our floor, our apartment

While we were away we had our living room, den and hallway floors redone. This all meant that before we went away, we had to clear everything from those rooms into our bedroom and office. Sort of like moving.It was really annoying, and it took forever. Though Dinah seemed to enjoy having the whole room to herself.
This is what the living room floor looked like before we had it redone.

Now that we're back (and our floor seems nearly brand new)
and we are faced with unpacking it all again. It's not so much fun, especially when I've got to design my Cape Cod show in the next week or two. There's a lot to do, and sorting through boxes of paper... not so appealing.

in between

Our apartment is renewed, the floors were a success! Christopher has decided to sand and paint our baseboards before we settle back in, so we're still living amongst boxes and our bedroom is still stuffed with living room furniture. It seems that I left my camera cable in Maine, and my backup one is in some box somewhere, so until we unpack and locate it there will be no New York photos.

One nice thing about this situation (not the camera situation, the living out of a box situation) is that everything seems intentional. We can make some improvements and throw some things out as we unpack, upgrade a little. A trip to Ikea is scheduled for next week.

Maine was wonderful, a combination of visiting with friends and family and relaxing and being alone. I feel like I savored just about every moment, really making the most of that rare chance to be alone and of the silence. I do feel like I could have used another week (or month) but now that we're back I'm knee deep in design work. It's kind of annoying how these things don't seem able to coexist.

Highlights of the week:

Christopher made the most delicious blueberry cobbler for his birthday dinner, which was attended by his cousin and the cousin's family. It surprises me sometimes how someone with absolutely no interest in food is able to cook well when he tries, but really it comes down to him following a recipe, and he can do that.

My father installed a shower for us! Of course, it wasn't the most practical shower, but it was better than using the bathtub, which we've done for the past 10 or so years. Yeah, that's him installing the shower. See how it's not so practical? where would you put your clothes?

My friend Laura (the one who lives in Germany) visited us for 24 hours or so. She was visiting her parents down in the Casco Bay, and I convinced her to leave her husband and children and see me. We had a grand time, swimming in the cloudy cold and visiting Hope Spinnery, a wind powered wool spinnery in Hope, Maine. We got a tour of the facilities and I bought 2 skeins of his wool, which is from local sheep and dyed with natural dyes. This is dyed with indigo and cochineal, and I am planning to use it on the cuffs of the sweater I'm designing.

It is a pretty awesome place. (I went back later with my mom and got naturally dyed roving, too.) He'll be at Rhinebeck in October. You all have to check him out. It's really truly yarn with integrity.

I met Mary Jane! She lives about 10 minutes from my parents' place, which is just too funny. I had dinner with her and her husband at their amazing self-designed and built concrete chateau, and she showed me tons of fiber goodies and we talked about everything. It was like meeting an old friend, and she even gave me pickles that her daughter had made with ingredients grown by the daughter's boyfriend. How's that for awesome!?

We spent a day with Christopher's grandparents. It was actually kind of fun. We went with them for lunch at about 2, ate tons of food and dessert, and then at 4:30 his grandmother suggested that we go get dinner, so we did even though we weren't at all hungry. But dinner consisted of the most delicious lobster rolls ever, in a totally gorgeous (but suddenly foggy) spot, so it wasn't so bad. And then we got ice cream, in honor of Christopher's birthday.

And that's about it, other than dyeing wool with goldenrod, which I've already described.

Edited to add the photo of the indigo vat, and to say that I did overdye the earlier tinted wool with goldenrod, and it turned out well, but alas I have no photos...