Category Archives: Knitting, Spinning, & Weaving

The Good And The Bad

I got out of the house! Mousme and I went over to Ceri’s house and knitted for a few hours. Everyone was pretty much in the same headspace (that kind of out of it post-holidays fuzzy brain thing) so it was an excellent idea for all of us. I got another block and a half done on HRH’s scarf, and this after doing two and a half the day before. (Officially two-thirds complete now — woo-hoo!) There were endless pots of tea and cookies and sandwiches and tea biscuits and Ceri cracked open another jar of the carrot cake preserve for us.

The down side of this is that I ran out of yarn. Finished a full burgundy block with about a foot of yarn to spare; ran out of the gold colour halfway through the next block. Noooooo!

This necessitates a trip to the yarn shops tomorrow before they close for New Year’s Eve. Because I have no (none, zero, nada) yarn AT ALL with which to work on any of my projects. Not Bodhifox’s hat (for which I must visit one shop), not HRH’s scarf (for which I must visit another), not the second half of my wool/cashmere/silk scarf (to be obtained at the same shop as HRH’s yarn). It is something of a miracle that in the space of three months I have gone from being anti-knitting to being desperate to replenish my yarn supply in order to safeguard my sanity.

Grumpy

So there’s been all sorts of lovely things happening lately, but some disappointments too. Such as today, when the boy woke up with a hacking, barking cough, which was enough to send HRH to the phone to cancel our much-anticipated trip out to t! and Jan’s place for the day.

I love my boys, I truly do. But I’m used to them being gone for most of the week, and they’ve been home for a full seven days now. This plus all the holidaying has drained me pretty badly, and I’m turning into the Irritable Me that I’m not so fond of because I haven’t had any time to myself. I have an outing planned for myself tomorrow, which will help.

The boys are currently watching Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (which has been renamed as “The Hogwarts Express” by Liam) on the new TV and the boy was just dancing with excitement in the middle of the room, riveted by the Sorting Hat sequence. He jumped and cheered when Harry was sorted into Gryffindor house. “Gryffindor! Just like me!” he exclaimed. He’s enchanted (no pun intended) by the characters and the settings. I suspect that he doesn’t remember the first time we watched it with him in the room a couple of years ago. We’re currently reading the Magic Tree House series before bedtime, but seeing how much he’s loving the Potter universe I may try reading him the first book soonish. I suspect I’ll be making him a Gryffindor scarf as well, which would thrill him to no end because not only will he have a Hogwarts scarf, he will match his Da.

I suppose I will go sit with them and knit, since I can’t focus on work when the boy is running in and out of my office. I managed to get about nine hundred words of Orchestrated written yesterday while he napped, which cheered me up a lot, but there’ still lots of work I want done by the end of the year. I have a pile of cello work to do as well at some point. If the office downstairs is empty I may go down there in a bit to practise.

Destined For Great Things… Someday

From a recent Ravelry exchange with Ceri:

    A: This is just gorgeous: [links to a pattern for a simply stunning knitted silk top]

    Ceri: Oh, lovely! I saw this at the bottom. Gorgeous: [links to a pattern for yet another stunning knitted lace top]

    A: Stunning! I want that, too! Wah. I have not the skill to do this, and I suspect I won’t for quite some time.

    Ceri: Well, you only get better by trying harder projects, right?

    A: Well, yes, but you’re talking to someone who hasn’t successfully purled yet.

Which means there’s nowhere to go but up, really.

In the ‘overdue assignment I just got yesterday’ news, I’m about a third of the way along. Trudge, trudge, trudge…

Day’s Summary

My site was down earlier and I could not blog! So here’s the day so far in one shot.

8h47: I am very achy. Not as achy as yesterday, thank goodness, and my focus is better. I was so achy yesterday I couldn’t even knit. This damn freelance assignment is getting done today, come what may. Because, well, I did nothing on it yesterday. Not for lack of trying, though. And I handled lots of other things that needed to be done, many of which were overdue to be handled. None of it was stuff that would yield a paycheque, however.

9h35: I have now spent an hour and a half trying to figure out what yarn Mousme used for Bodhifox’s Ravenclaw scarf. I think I have it tracked down by comparing the recommended yarns in the pattern and the pictures she posted. The name she gave me wasn’t correct (which she suspected when giving it to me) so I went around it the long way. (No, I am not yet working. Shut up.)

10h25: Ceri has just given me the correct name of the yarn! I was completely wrong. Are those angels singing? And I’ve just found a replacement for the discontinued shade! Now to track it down in person at one of my local yarn shops, many of whom carry yarn from this manufacturer.

11h47: Oops. I overcooked my chicken nuggets and smiley fries. They probably shouldn’t shatter when you bite them.

12h31: Facebook is a good place to divert frustrated blogging energy when attempting to work-avoid.

11h30: The rest of the LCO fall concert has been posted on Youtube:

Vivaldi concerto grosso part 1 (first and second movements)
Vivaldi Concerto Grosso part 2 (third movement)
Brahms Hungarian Dances part 1 (dances 5 and 6)
Brahms Hungarian Dances part 2 (dance 1)

My comments? Nice cello work at the beginning of the fugue in the Vivaldi part 1, with a bonus shot of my face while playing at 2:42! (Actually, this video was taken from the first violin side so there’s a lot of shots of the celli from face-on through part 1 and part 2. Even though I am often blocked by the conductor.) Nice cello work through out this entire piece, really. Oh yay, we all finished the third movement together, and with conviction. Stick the landing!

Around 2:20 of the Brahms 1: Look, we have a percussionist! Just below her and to the right is the music teacher from my old high school doing a guest turn as a trumpet player for us. (I can’t rightly call him my music teacher from high school because I never took music.) One thing I really like about these videos is being able to see everyone in the orchestra t different times. Most people in the audience only see the first couple of rows, and those of us in the orchestra are usually staring at music or the conductor.

Also, I could be wrong about the order of the Brahms dances, but I’m too lazy to track down my scribble in the concert programme. There were three, and we played 1, 5, and 6, but not in that order.

15h15: FINISHED! Yes! Now to query about the slight mess the identification numbers are in and an issue with uploading the completed assignment. Also to ask about the invoice I submitted two weeks ago which hasn’t been responded to, so I have no idea if they got it or not.

Which brings us to now! I should probably think about something for dinner. No, wait; tacos. There. Assuming we have shells or tortillas for soft tacos, that is.

Have Survived

Made it through my second recital ever. Go me!

Didn’t screw up my shifts. Didn’t let the bow skip. Didn’t let the rhythm go ragged. Held a half note a wee bit too long but adjusted. The second repetition was better. I don’t think I really lifted the bow as had been my bad habit before lessons either, although it wasn’t as ‘in the string’ as I would have liked. All the trio and ensemble stuff was great, too. I wasn’t a mess leading up to it, but the nerves did kick in after we’d set up and I encountered the ‘will it never be day?!’ mood that develops when you’re ready and it’s not time to start yet. Apparently we have another recital in June, and I’m actually looking forward to that.

Liam fell asleep ten minutes into the programme. He got to hear the littlest girls do their pieces, but fell asleep either during mine or directly afterwards. He was very impressed with the butterfly someone had painted on the youngest girl’s face in full colour, complete with sparkly highlights.

Now it’s on to making shepherd’s pie (well, more correctly, cottage pie) for supper, and casting on HRH’s scarf, as we nipped out to Ariadne Knits before lunch to pick up the yarn. Liam was very impressed with the yarn store, although was firmly convinced that there ought to have been a cat.

Knitting Report

I cannot control the vagaries of my blog template messing with the appearance of the comment box (aptly dubbed ‘Schroedinger’s comment box’ by the lovely and gifted Asherah!) or the placement of said comment box if it does show up, but I can control my knitting!

So yes, I have what is shaping up to be a lovely loosely knit scarf, and roughly a third of my skein left. I suspect I will be making a run to Ariadne to pick up another skein because I want this scarf to go ’round my neck twice. Although I’ll knit to the end of this one and then decide. If it will do as-is (i.e. crosses over in the front even if only barely to cover my neck), then it will do. I can always knit another one after Christmas and graft them in the middle if I want to.

I also have two more projects lined up, both requests! Bodhifox needs a hat, and HRH needs a scarf, both of which require me to purl. But after mastering yarn overs while test-running the faggot lace pattern I suspect purling will now be so much easier, as I’ve got the bring-the-yarn-to-the-front thing down pat now.

The boy went down for his nap half an hour ago. I should pull out the laptop and try to get a page or so of Orchestrated done. I’m just so tired, though. Being even a little sick does that to me (thanks, fibro). And then there is Terry’s arrangement of Carol of the Bells for four cellos that Guanaco sent me this morning (thanks, guys!) that I’m itching to mess with.

Huzzah!

My feeds are being picked up again by the RSS readers that recognised them before the new theme! Woo-hoo!

Sometimes all you need to do is wave sharp pointy and heavy blunt things at the computer and threaten certain doom sleep on it. :)

Of course, clicking on the ‘subscribe to feed’ link still takes you to a page of error messages, but hey. One thing at a time.

At this rate, I may have enough courage to try updating the entire installation again before the end of December. Assuming I can face the potential of Losing Everything Yet Again.

Also? Snow! Lots of it! With a bonus round of freezing rain in the middle! Winter is very definitely present, judging by the size of the ploughed snowbanks at the end of the driveway.

And… I have half a scarf. Go me!

ETA: I’ve just had a report that a reader can’t comment because the comment box doesn’t show up at all, in either Firefox or IE. Anyone else having a problem? If you don’t have one of my private addresses scribble a quick note to owldaughter AT gmail DOT com. (I can’t fix this one, or take the blame; this is a prepackaged theme that I have not messed with in any way, shape, or form. It’s also not the theme I wanted, though, so it’s not my Theme of Choice or set in stone.)

More new stuff: ‘Catastrophic’ low voter turnout for the provincial election this past Monday (no, really? what with election fatigue, a general hatred of government after the federal fiasco, and minus forty-after-windchill temperatures?), and apparently we had 17 centimetres of snow last night on top of the however many we got during the day.