Weddingbee Blog

So last week, I wrote about not knowing whether I should attempt some wedding knitting. I felt like it would be a shame not to knit anything for the wedding, as it is my favourite hobby, but didn’t want to stress myself out. Well, everyone wrote back with such wonderful compliments, and messages of support, so I dove in!

Monday I wandered over to a yarn store not 4 blocks from here, hoping to find some perfect teal yarn. I wasn’t too hopeful—it’s always hard going shopping for something so specific. Well, I walked in and found this:

Three little skeins of teal sock yarn! I brought it home and pulled out some black sock yarn I already had: I’d actually bought it a couple years ago to make some socks for Cinnamon Buns, but never got around to it. I started the socks that night, and they’ve become my work knitting. Before you think I’m a bad employee, theatre can be a very ‘hurry up and wait’ type of environment (depending on the show, of course), so it is good to have things like knitting to keep your hands and brain busy. A lot of my current cast does crosswords—I knit. Naturally, I only knit in those dead spaces, and if there’s an emergency (busted button or snap, broken prop) or I have a cue (handing off props, guns, blood bags, helping people change outfits in 10.5 seconds, supervising the safe “hanging” of an actor… I have a weird job) the knitting is the furthest thing from my mind. That said, here is what one night at home and a week at work (on a show with a slow Act 1) looks like in knitted form:

I’m getting close to the heel: you can see the start of the second skull pirate on the bottom right, and a few rows after finishing him, it will be time for the heel. I’ve made Cinnamon Buns try on the sock so far, and it fits, which is awesome. If you’re a knitter, the teal is Koigu KPM, and the black is Blue Moon Fiber Arts mediumweight.

I’ve decided that I will work on Cinnamon Buns’ socks first, and start my wedding shawl when they are finished. If I were to pick just one project, I’d knit his socks, so I won’t be too fussed if I don’t finish the shawl.

Oh, shawl patterns! You know all those ones I showed you last week? I picked one! I picked one that wasn’t in that original post—in my defense, it is a much more recent pattern than those ones, and I hadn’t done a new search in a while. I will (maybe) be knitting Potager, by Anne Hanson for my wedding shawl:

(photo from Anne Hanson’s website)

This shawl is just what I was looking for. I wanted something that evoked leaves or flowers, to go with the flowers on my dress. There are a lot of lovely geometric shawls out there, but I wanted something more organic-looking. There will be some beads on the two ends, and I’ve ordered some 100% silk yarn from the Unique Sheep to knit it with. As one commenter mentioned, it’s my wedding, this is the time to invest in silk! Wool is a little more forgiving, but I want that sheen that only silk has.

Now the race against time begins!