Potted pirates

We all make mistakes, and drama groups are no exception to that rule, especially not very new and highly enthusiastic ones. So I'm not blaming any of them for what I'm about to relate, but... it was still kind of frustrating.

The first thing I asked about the new play was how long they wanted it, and they said an hour; so an hour was what they got, pretty much exactly (I didn't time it, but I knew how many pages the Alice script had run to, and I knew how long that had lasted, so I just did the maths). And what I sent them was, almost exactly, this (I've just edited it very slightly to add a couple of footnotes I forgot):

They loved it. In fact, they raved over it. But... (and you knew there was a "but" coming, didn't you?)... they got cold feet about the length. They didn't think they could manage a whole hour. Could I trim it down to 45 minutes?

And I said, yes, but. You're going to lose that Minion you had me shoehorn into the story; you're going to lose one of the songs, which will probably be Orinoco Flow because it's pretty repetitive; you're going to lose the entire love poem scene; and that's just for starters. In order to keep the main plot intact, I had to sacrifice depth, and the thing I was most annoyed about was that I had to lose almost all the build-up to Higgs deciding he really didn't want to be a pirate. In the cut version, it comes almost completely out of the blue; he was able to keep one relevant line in the earlier scenes, but that was all, because I had to remove pretty much everything that didn't move the main plot forwards.

So I made the cuts and sent them the abridged version, but I have also politely requested that the words "abridged version" should appear in brackets after the title on all the publicity, because it is, quite honestly, not as good as the original. It's as good as I could make it in the circumstances, but still. To be fair, the organiser did apologise; she said she really should have said 45 minutes at the start, but she was still learning. And I said, no worries, we all are. Even so, the fact that I'm not blaming anyone didn't make the job any easier or less annoying.

Anyway, that's the pirates; and I don't have to do anything else related to the drama group for a while except make nets, and I may conveniently be able to combine that with SCA activities. There is one Guy de Dinan (that's his SCA name; I have no idea what his mundane name is) who's trying to get volunteers to show up to Stourbridge Mediaeval Fair at the beginning of September, and in particular he wants people who can do relevant demos. I told him I was cautiously interested. I said I could do a netting demo, provided that it was possible to work round my various issues; I'll need someone who can give a lift to both me and the wheelchair, and then, of course, there is Sibyl. He said that the on-site facilities consisted of a Portaloo, and I said... probably no; if I do get there, I think we'll have to stop somewhere more disabled-friendly en route. I've never used a Portaloo but I very much doubt you can get a wheelchair into one, let alone deal with a stoma which has decided to throw a wobbly. But if Lord Guy finds a way round that, I'm up for it. At the moment I use modern netting needles, which are thin and made of steel and absolutely excellent for the job, but I have ordered some more traditional ones for the purpose of the SCA; they are bamboo, so I'll probably stain them to look like light oak, and if I'm making nautical nets I don't have to worry too much about the gauge. To be honest I don't even have to use the same needle all the time, so I can easily switch to one of my metal ones at home. The only thing that has to be consistent is the mesh stick.

Last time it was mostly dyeing and then a little bit about the drama group; this time it's the other way round. I've realised I don't have to suspend anything. I knit my long thin rectangular blank as detailed in the last post (using Irish moss stitch or something similar, so it doesn't roll up at the edges); I roll it into a cylinder and pin it at the top to stop it unwinding; I put a very small amount of dye in the bottom of that galvanised bucket; and then I just stand my cylinder(s) in the dye for a while. Remove, rinse, allow to dry, clean out the bucket, mix up a small amount of the next colour, re-roll cylinder(s) and put in the other way up. No wires, strings, or DPNs required; gravity works for you rather than against you.

It's not going to happen fast. Adelle reckons she'll be posting it tomorrow, then once it does arrive I have to knit it up into the blanks (I'm going to use a double strand like she does, which will at least make things quicker). But at least I won't have to wind it once it's dyed; I'll just be able to knit straight off the blank, unravelling as I go, since I knit two socks at once anyway. (The DK will be a little different. I'll probably be winding one strand while I knit the other. I have a top pattern which has been sitting on my hard drive for months waiting patiently for exactly the right yarn; I think this is going to be it.)

And, on a final note... it turns out that mediaeval-styled shoes unexpectedly fill a gap. I didn't really have a pair of shoes that was suitable for wet summer days. Well, now I do! Multi-use for the win...