HANDICRAFTERS ON cable TV

so yes, it's true, anne, zona, rachel and i actually DID spend two days last week taping two episodes of Uncommon Threads last week. for those of you who don't know, Uncommon Threads is a show on the diy network (check your local listings!) about all kinds of needlecrafts, except knitting. now, if you have been paying attention (and considering we've had 4 entries in so many months, you probably haven't), you will know that the four of us met in a KNITTING GROUP in orange, california. this may have daunted mere mortals, but not us. no, we (guided as usual by the incomparable Anne) simply locked ourselves in Anne's house for almost an entire weekend, and, fueled by champagne, shrimp salad and sheer ingenuity, came up with a smorgesboard of possible projects to submit that showed off our other needlecraft abilities, including but not limited to: hand dyeing yarn, needle felting, sewing, beading and embroidery.

In the end, the crack production team at screen door productions focused on three prime projects that were made of recycled, felted wool sweaters: an impossibly large stuffed animal/pillow in the shape of a tortoise designed by Anne, a pair of house slippers that i designed (even though the original prototypes were so ugly that my boyfriend wants to keep them to mock me with), and a lampshade that Zona and Rachel created. We spent several weeks before the shoot creating examples of the projects and these horrible terrible things called "step-outs." Basically, a step-out is an example of the project in various stages of completion. It's the crafting equivalent of what allows Rachel Ray to make a potroast in 23 minutes.

We arrived at our hotel (the fabulous, ultra-luxurious Burbank Hilton) Monday night at ten. Since Anne and I are both slackers, we set up the sewing machine and worked on making step outs for that dreaded turtle until 4 am and 2 am respectively. The next morning, we showed up to the studio at 7 am, fully made up and in what we thought were camera-ready clothes, where over the next several hours before filming we discovered the following things:

a) we did not need to bother putting on make-up or doing our hair in the morning because they have people who do that;
b) our three projects were being cut to one project because the turtle is actually much more complicated to explain than to make;
c) all of our step-outs (aka the reason we stayed up so late the night before) were wrong;
d) anne's french manicure was NOT destined to appear on camera because it was destroyed before we even began filming.

so, after hours and hours of cutting up other felted sweaters and re-doing and re-working all of the horrid step-outs, we all were covert in lint, had permanently destroyed our lungs thanks to microscopic bits of wool that we had inhaled en masse, and finally ready to shoot. Shooting was long, and i was reminded at how bad my fake smile really is, but it was totally rewarding, even if i did have a total brain fart when i realized i was sewing stretchy wool ribbing on camera, and i basically suck at that. :o)

The next day, wiser and more experienced (and unfortunately one person lighter because Rachel couldn't get off work), we returned to shoot our second episode, which involved making a cat bed. now, the best part of this episode is that Zona and i both have an active dislike for cats, so we had to try very hard not to express that too adamantly. one of my favorite moments of day two was when Steve, our fabulous day two producer, asked me if i had any animals and i said no. Zona immediately called me out and shouted across the studio, "Aubrey, you should probably tell them that you have goats, chickens and LLAMAS in your backyard!" Don't most people who have an exotic animal petting zoo in back of their house forget occasionally?

Day two ended much more quickly than day one (sewing fabric = way easier than sewing stupid felt) and we were ecstatic to be done (after two nights of 3-5 hours of sleep, we were all pretty much useless). Alana, the host, was a dream to work with (and gave me a glimmer of hope that not all crochet is evil), and both of our producers were way cool, especially Steve, because he brought us wine! i think we ALL agree that we would happily return anytime we are invited. Especially if they give us more wine.

so now i think that i have tortured y'all enough with the miniscule details of our adventures. cheers to a long future together, with more knitting!

-aubrey