Well, my quest to reduce my stash continues as I’ve begun AquaMarline by Park Williams. I recently finished two cardigans (I’ll cover those in a FO Friday post) and I was itching to start something new, mainly because I will be traveling soon and I wanted to have a project in-progress for the planes, trains, and automobiles.
Is a bulky sweater knit primarily from four strands of single-ply fingering the most practical choice for a travel project? No, but I’ve been on a large project kick for a while, so I stuffed the project and all four yarn balls into my backpack and moved a pair of shoes into my partner’s luggage.
I didn’t notice until I went to cast on that AquaMarline is a raglan knit from the bottom up. And it wasn’t until I was nearly done with the torso that I thought that might interrupt the marling gradient; I didn’t want the sleeves, knit separately and then attached to the body, to have a completely different color scheme and then have a noticeable border when they joined. So instead of starting the sleeves from the cuff, I started them from the other end. I did a crochet cast-on for the number of stitches needed for the widest part of the sleeve, and knit a couple of rounds in the same colors used in the torso. Then I attached the sleeves, and when I finish the body, I’ll return and knit the sleeves down to the cuffs. A crochet cast-on, like a provisional cast-on, will let me pick up live stitches when I’m ready.
I think this pattern would offer much smoother color distribution if it was designed to be top-down rather than bottom-up, but as the design description says, this pattern is all about playing with color and experimenting. Maybe I’m just a little too much of a control freak to allow for some heavily randomized color schemes.
Where I’m traveling
I brought my Aquamarline with me on the Amtrak to Philadelphia, where I saw one of my very favorite bands at Citizen’s Bank Arena. Yes, after 20 years of trying to see them live, I finally saw My Chemical Romance in concert. Truly, truly a dream come true for me. In the days since I’ve been relishing the feeling of being 13 years old again listening to Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. It’s such a deep nostalgia for not just a time in my life, but for the imagination my preteen self had and how this particular band helped me indulge it.
This MCR tour is all about The Black Parade, which is the album that broke them into the mainstream. The first act of their performance, or pageant, really was the entirety of the album. The band dressed in their marching-band outfits and acted as the entertainment for a dictator of a fictional nation called Draag. During the set there was a firing squad, an appearance by the Philly Phanatic, Variety Puzzles, a launch of a nuclear warhead, a murder by a clown, a burlesque performance by the clown, and a suicide bombing by the clown. If MCR is good at anything, they are experts at theatrics.
Their second set was very stripped back. After Gerard Way, the lead singer, had his throat slashed and the rest of the members were taken off the stage with bags on their heads by Draag’s secret police, they reappeared on a second stage in the middle of the crowd and played a selection from their other albums. I don’t think there was a single person in the audience who didn’t know the words to every song, in either set. Here’s my selection of bad photos – I wish I had more but my phone battery was at 20% by the time they took the stage.
The Variety Puzzle bit was very exciting for me. I love Variety Puzzles.
The next day my partner and I spent the day wandering Philadelphia. After checking out of the hotel, we found a very high-quality cafe, Thank You Thank You, offering lots of different roasts that my partner has been wanting to try – he’s a huge coffee enthusiast – and had a couple of pourovers. Then i foudn the nearest yarn store, which was Yarnphoria just south of Center City. This is a lovely spot with cool, contemporary samples, displays of crocheted amigurumi, and the cutest little shop dog there ever was: Gertie.
When we walked in there were already some customers there who looked very much like they had also been to the concert the night before, so I felt very at home. The owner (or who I assume was the owner) was extremely welcoming and helpful, pointing out all the local brands they had available. I left with two skeins of Scout from Kelbourne Woolens, which is also a local Philadelphia business. At one point, Gertie got up from her couch, barked, and individually sniffed every person in the store. Definitely worth a visit if you’re ever in town. I would have loved to visit Wild Hand as well, but unfortunately we didn’t have time that day to travel to the Mt. Airy neighborhood from downtown.
And in just under a week, I’ll be leaving town again for Venice! My partner, who works in the film industry as an AC (assistant camera), worked on the documentary Cover Up about the career of Seymour Hersh. The documentary is from Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus (Citizenfour), and it was accepted to premier at the Venice Film Festival. This documentary is probably my partner’s favorite of the work he’s done, as he’s an ardent follower of politics and history, so it was beyond exciting for him that he was invited to attend the premiere. And I’m even luckier that I get to join him!
Smitty is Knitting 