Daily Archives: December 3, 2009

A Rainy Thursday

It’s pouring outside. December 3, and it’s pouring. HRH tells me that there’s a 40mm rainfall warning out for the region. This is entirely wrong; it ought to be snow.

We got new music at orchestra last night, so now I can share the programme for the spring concert (27 March 2010! Don’t say I didn’t give you enough advance warning this time!):

Sight-reading new music is always an… interesting experience. I can give you the correct rhythm, or the correct notes, not both, especially on something I’m not familiar with, like the Debussy. (Or something like Vaughn Williams, whose music I am familiar with and adore, but who is, erm, somewhat eclectic in his use of rhythm and key signatures, I am discovering now that I have the chance to see the scores.) On the other hand, I aced the Haydn. It’s nice that it was the last thing we did before we left.

That lovely skein of dyed mohair I showed off yesterday bled in the twist-setting bath, and is duller now, which makes me very sad indeed. It’s not unattractive, just not the brighter colours I loved. Kind of like leaves get after they’ve been off the tree for a day or so, now that I think of it. I really need to figure out a way to get the greens to set properly as the other dyes do. I’m currently discussing it with a bunch of other dye-people on Ravelry and they’ve got some suggestions for me to try. It may have something to do with our hard water. I’ll mess with amounts of vinegar and length of time the fibre is heated/left to absorb dye, even if the dye looks exhausted.

I handed in my freelance project yesterday, so today is back to the Poppy book. I have one hundred pages left before I run out of story. Let’s see what happens. Karine is coming over to work in the downstairs office today, and we have a sushi lunch scheduled. I deposited three freelance cheques in my account last night, so I deserve a little treat.