Opera!

This evening we drove up to Boston to see Intermezzo's production of Benjamin Britten's opera "Curlew River". (Disclosure: I sing in a choir led by the production's music director) It's not a flashy opera--the cast and orchestra are small, and the choreography and costumes are highly stylized (Britten based the opera on a Japanese Noh play)--but I found the austerity helped me focus more on the words and the gorgeousness of the music, and the performers were excellent.

I hear that the opera hasn't been staged in Boston in more than 20 years. It's being performed again on Sunday afternoon, so if you're in the area and you're into 20th-century classical music--heck, even if you're not but you're curious--you may want to check it out. More details are available here.

Back to knitting...

One mock croc sock is finished, and the second one has been started.


The votive holder sleeves are also finished.

The pattern came from Melanie Falick's book Handknit Holidays. Working on the sleeves reinforces my belief that I have a learning curve shaped like a sine wave. For example, I had discovered that I needed to string more beads than the instructions stated, so by the time I reached sleeves #3 and 4 I was so zealous with the stringing that I had about 50 leftover beads on the wire for each sleeve. The first time this happened, I thought "Fine, I'll just hold the wire over the bead container and let the beads slide off".

Oh, that was such a bad idea. The result reminded me of a fire hose with the water turned on full blast and no one holding on to the nozzle. Beads sprayed onto the coffee table, skittered on the floor, and rolled under furniture. I spent the next 10 minutes crawling around and picking up beads. Thank goodness I had a flashlight.

A few days later, I finished sleeve #4 and again had about 50 extra beads on the wire. And wouldn't you know it, that 10 minutes of agony from a few days earlier vanished from my brain and were replaced with the thought that if I was really, really careful I could hold the wire over the bead container and let the beads slide off...