Midsummer

We have a family tradition, going back to when the girl was in high school, of treating ourselves to an evening of Shakespeare under the stars at American Players Theater in Spring Green.

The girl is all grown up now, but she still joins us, and since Mom moved to Madison she has become one of the party as well.

Last night was our evening. The day had been awfully hot, but the clouds rolled in by late afternoon. About 40 minutes before the performance was due to start, the wind picked up and a light rain started to fall, and kept up as we climbed the hill through the woods. We crawled into ponchos when we got to our seats. But, as if on cue, the rain stopped just as the performance began.

The play was "A Midsummer Night's Dream". It's hard to go wrong with that one, but this was a particularly joyous production. Afterwards, we rode home in something of a glow.

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As a different sort of treat to myself, I ordered a couple of new books.



The Janet Szabo cables book is for serious study. I've only flipped through it so far, but I can see that she has done her usual thorough job, and also that there are a couple of cable tricks in there that are completely new to me. What this is most like is a dictionary of cable stitches, with the distinction that the author provides the technical information you need to understand what you are doing, and why. Very helpful if you want to try inventing combinations of your own. The book format, wider than it is tall, is a little clumsy in my hands, but I can see why she chose it, because it allows her to layout the pages with a photo, chart and line by line directions arranged side by side. It's very easy for the eye to move back and forth between them, which I find very helpful.

Knitting America is just for fun. I had flipped through it in one of the big bookstores and thought "I don't need this, but I'd like to have it." It's almost a knitter's "coffee table book" - lots of pictures. There's text, too, of course, and I'm always happy to get a hold of information on knitting history. And there are some projects included. But I bought it mostly for pictures. I'm looking forward to really diving into it.