Quick Update

Sorry, no pics today; been crazy busy again. Tilia is coming along slowly but well. I am on the 7th pattern repeat and it seems like a nice firm yet drapey fabric.

After all the tests, the pulmonary doc has determined I have no lung disease (asthma or anything else) and my problems are actually allergy induced bronchitis. I am following an agressive course of treatment and should be better *real* soon. Thanks so much for your well wishes - they did the trick :-)

Third Time a Charm?

Yes, dear fellow knitters, your read right. I have begun Tilia for the third time. And the last (I say that now). I appreciate your commiserating with the frog pond adventures and learning curve events of the last week. I know we have all been there.

Here is Tilia as of last night:

In my efforts to stay sane, I found these sweet little Ribbed Lace socks from Sensational Knitted Socks and knew I had to begin them right away: (the ones top left)

The yarn that was beckoning was Lorna's Lace in the color Amish. I love these colors - am using #0 dpns on these:

Love this yarn: soft, squishy and pretty.

This week has been quite an experience in other ways - I have been coughing and wheezing to a point where it is bothersome. Being an Oboist who must be especially able to breathe well, I decided to go to a pulmonary specialist to see if he could figure out what is going on. He changed my blood pressure meds (coughing is a side effect!!) and gave me inhalers and nose spray. The inhaler helps, but the nose spray is gross. I have tests scheduled on Wednesday to see if this is asthma (runs in the women in my family) or what. Unfortunately I was a smoker for 20 years as the dr. so pointedly reminded me. I will let you know what transpires. Please think good thoughts.....

On the exciting news front - I have been offered an adjunct faculty position as oboe instructor at one of the state universities. Yes - I accepted! Now I am scrambling around trying to figure out what to write for my course syllabus.

As you see, things in our house have been pretty interesting this week..... I always love your comments, so if you have anything at all you want to say - please, please, please sign in and say it!

Talk to y'all later in the week.

Tilia take two

So as I am merrily knitting along, I felt the fabric was too loose and floppy. Even though I thought I had gauge. I ran into a roadblock at the neck; Lavold's directions assume the knitter has more experience than I.

I stopped knitting to wait until I could get to my LYS for advice. I was able to go Monday and found out what to do at the neck. But I was informed that my gauge was too big. (AHA!! That's why the fabric was so loosey goosey.)

We talked about frogging down to the pattern, but when I got home, I decided to start the entire bit on smaller needles. Here we are right now:

I hope to have more to post soon. This is a learning experience.......

This

We spent lots of time looking at this:

And not enough time eating desserts that looked like this:

But I sat on the beach and did plenty of this:

When we returned home, they looked like this:

The pattern is Almost Argyle from Knit Picks.

Yarn is KP Essentials and I used #1 dpns.

And then I had nothing else on the needles, I decided to begin this:

It is Tilia from Elsebeth Lavold's Designer's Choice Book Eight.

And I have this much done:

I am using Hempathy in Rose.

So after lovely relaxing vacation, we are back in gear.

Students are all attending their lessons, schedules are firming up for the start of school, symphony contracts are coming in with repertoire lists and it is HOT, HOT, HOT here.

Sounds like August to me! Have a cool week y'all.