Christmas Present!

DH bought us tickets for Wicked for my Christmas present this year! He was encouraged (nagged) to do so by DD2, and I must say it was an excellent present.

The date was last Friday, and both of us took time off work in the afternoon to get the party started with a bang. We went to Red Lobster (DH's favorite) and participated in their sale, which made it very reasonable. Then we drove down town Chicago, arriving 2 hours before the curtain went up. We were not excited, or eager, or anything like that!

It was bitterly cold down town, so we waited at a nearby book-store, in the coffee shop. We read magazines, had coffee, enjoyed people watching, and each other's company. I noticed ballet classes going on across the street, and realized afterwards we were watching the Joffrey Ballet! So cool!

At the theater we saw people dressed all the way from "North Face" comfort to theater glitter. We were comfortably in the middle.



Of course, there is no photography allowed in the theater, but everyone I saw had their cell phone out. DH took this discreet photo. The Cadillac Theater is about 1/2 as big as the Chicago Theater we went to in September. The light section in the picture above is a map of Oz, with the Emerald City showing as a sparkly section in the middle. Above the map is a dragon, part of the Dragon Clock of Oz, which keeps time for the whole country. At strategic moments it would flap, the eyes would glow, and it would breath smoke. Fun!

The whole setting was a little "Steam Punk" which is funny, because I never pictured Oz that way. The story was good. Both of the main characters were the understudies, but still had beautiful voices. I only wish I had been able to understand the words better in the songs, but that is my own hearing, no one else's fault.

I wanted to get a picture of us in front of the Wicked poster, sort of "proof" we were there, but many other people had the same idea, and it was too cold to stand around waiting our turn. We just bundled up and headed for the car. We were both glad we had chosen warmth over fashion.

It was a wonderful evening. Thank you DH!

Part 1, part 2

I am having so much fun stitching on this project! The center square and the partial stepped outline is part one, so you can see I am almost, but not quite, finished with that part. (There is one more color to be added to the outside border, yet, but I am missing that color. I don't remember where I got my kit [I may have sourced it myself], but I am missing one color, and have one extra color I don't need.) I even did the specialty stitches, 4 Algerian eyelets, and 4 partial Jessicas.



The tulips and crocuses are the 1st half of part 2. They were very simple to stitch, and went very quickly, but add so much nice color. Of course, there are many, many beads, both in parts 1 and 2, but those will have to wait until the end.

The second 1/2 of part two is 24 small windmills, with beads for the vanes, 6 on the outside of each side of the square. They are only a couple of stitches each, so should go quickly.

I had a panicky moment when I was looking for parts 8-12 of this pattern. The pattern is delivered through the Internet, and I found part 10, but it was protected by a password, and I didn't see the other parts I needed. I was afraid I was going to have to re-purchase the pattern from the designer, since she has a policy of not providing passwords to anyone who has lost them (understandable, since she had been spending hours fielding requests from people). I was very grateful I found the missing pieces, in the folder they should have been in, just in a wrong order. I am all set!