Fine Finishing Course

Last Saturday was the Fine Finishing Course taught by none other than Nancie Wiseman. The Woolie Ewe put on the class and there were about 25 participants. I was a bit nervous never having taken a class before but was soon put to ease. Ms. Wiseman is so personable with a keen wit - I thoroughly enjoyed her. Her teaching was clear and beautifully presented. I was sitting in the very front, so I could hear everything but the knitters in the rear had a difficult time due to an a/c vent making noise over their table. I learned so much that I am very motivated to get Tilia finished (read on) and put together.

She was so gracious - signing our books and posing for pictures.

Here is the completed Debbie Bliss Baby Bolero, all seamed up (thanks to your words of wisdom, Nancie!)

After the last post, my life has been insanely busy. In addition to the Saturday knitting class, I performed on the faculty recital at TAMU Commerce Monday, played 2 rehearsals and a symphony concert later in the week plus taught my 30+ oboe students their lessons. Luckily, Saturday was a light student day and Sunday was totally free.

What did I do on my free day? Well! Cleaned three bathrooms and did 2 loads of laundry. Then I cleaned the five gallon fish tank I keep in my studio, redecorated it with a rock ledge and three plants and moved a new Betta into it. Then I put a chicken on the rotisserie and cooked some potatoes and green beans to go with it. And knit, knit and knit some more while watching Tiger Woods play amazing golf.

I would go totally nuts if I wasn't busy (not to mention there is a lot of yarn to buy therefore the need for income) so I feel very lucky and happy to fully ensconced in my career. I figure at some time it will slow down - people just aren't going to want some ancient babe (ha!) performing and teaching. Until that time, I will pedal as fast as I can and be grateful to be in demand.

I have been chipping away at (aka knitting) Tilia. The third time was indeed the charm and here is the finished back.

And a closer view of the lace-

I already have 6 repeats on the front finished and am determined to finish the front sooner rather than later.

It was really nice to hear from you all last week. I appreciate your well wishes and comments. Woodstock was in 1969 and I was a foolish 15 year old (yikes! now you know my age). But I was so lucky to be able to go and it sure was an event I will never forget. There was nothing to compare with seeing Jimi Hendrix play the Star Spangled Banner early that morning.

Alpaca and Veggies and Woodstock, Oh My!

Warning - picture intensive!

I am back from New York after a week with Mom. She is doing very well - I see no change since last time (this is a good thing when Mom is 87 years young). And after the second round of Prednisone, continuation of Advair, Nasonex and antihistamine, I cough no more!!!! No more prescriptions (other than the Nasonex) - whew! I feel great! And I appreciate all your thoughtful comments.

While in NY, I went to the old Woodstock site in Bethel. It has been turned into a Performing Arts Project where the NY Philharmonic and popular musicians come to play:

Much to my happy surprise, there was an Alpaca Festival going on. Here is the local Alpaca Farm from just down the road.

There were lots of things to look at:

A spinning demonstration

Food for thought

Crafts to buy

And down the hill is the original Woodstock site commemorated by this monument:

The actual amphitheater was smaller than I remembered (stage was on the left near the road) but then again, things might have been a bit hazy back in 1969.

I did do some knitting while at Mom's - here is an unseamed Baby Bolero from the Debbie Bliss Baby book. I used Cotton Ease and #6 KP Options.

And the socks I have been knitting from Sensational Knitted Socks using Lorna's Lace and #0 dpns.

Tomorrow is the class I signed up for put on by the Woolie Ewe - it is Nancie Wisemann teaching us her finishing techniques. I thought I would wait until after the class to seam the bolero so maybe I could put my new knowledge to work.

I am *really* happy to be home.

So, see you later and leave me a little note if you want.

:-)

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.

Random Sunday Stuff

The final performance was last night. It was a fun run, but I am happy to be done. Gilbert and Sullivan music is somewhat simple and seems to roll around in my head almost constantly after playing it for two weeks. I am ready for a little R & R.

Did I mention we are going to Mexico tomorrow? For a week? To meet Jim's sister and family and lay around on the beach, belly up to the pool bar and basically decompress?

I didn't? Oh, bad, bad me!

We plan spending many hours gazing at this.

And Twig - thank you ever so much for nominating me for

What a sweet surprise. Now it is up to me to nominate five more buddies. Hmmm - This was difficult, since there are so many wonderful Rockin' Girls!

But here we go:

Sharon at Unraveled Again

Shrodinger Knits

LarjMarj at Knizzle fo Shizzle
Mer at Mer Knits

Lobstah Knits

There are really a few more people I would like to nominate, but I am only allowed five. So some of you are in my heart, but not on the list..... Please forgive.

Finally - some knitting content!

Even though we were in production, I did knit a few little (and I mean little) goodies:

How about a pair of tiny (3") baby mittens? Yes, I warned you they were little :>)

I am still trying to decide what to take for beach knitting.... in the meantime, here are my beach ready toes:

~~~~~ See you next week ~~~~~~

Pirates and Kimonos

Hi Bloggie Knitting Buddies!

Pirates has been going well. We got reviewed last night and although he wasn't completely kind to the singers and conductor, he wrote "Dr. (conductor's name) got mostly taut and carefully scaled playing from a compact ensemble of four winds and five strings." To me that says we did just fine, playing together and well balanced. Nothing wrong with that!

As for stage fright (or pit fright) Twig and Larjmarj - I do have random times of performance anxiety. However, in this show there is a lot to concentrate on so I haven't felt nervous. I guess after 40 years of playing the oboe my nerves are usually under control. Only now and then do I feel scared. I appreciate your interest and concern.

Shrodinger - thanks for the well wishes. One of the divas, oops, I mean singers said "toi toi." I know it meant good luck, but I had never heard that one before. Any idea what language??

Here are the bibs and kimonos from Mason Dixon patterns I just finished. They were knit with Sugar and Cream cotton on #5 needles. I know Twig's new (in the fall) grandbabies will feel loved in them. :-)

Quick View

Here is my view at work before the house doors open:

We are in producton of Pirates of Penzance with the

Living Opera.

The first show went pretty well and we are hoping the remaining ones do too.

See you soon -

UFO and FOs

As promised, here is the finished Soleil.

Pattern: Soleil from Knitty
Yarn: KnitPicks Shine in Sky
Needles: #5 circs
Began: June 11
Finished: July 5
Modification: I altered the neckline to the scoop from the designer's Ballet Camisole pattern.

I am pretty happy with this one!

Here is some baby knitting I am doing for a friend's twin grandbabies. The bib from Mason Dixon knitting:

And I found these adorable buttons:

And since I bought a humongous ball of this color Sugar n Cream cotton, I started on the a pair of the Baby Kimono:

We begin rehearsing the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta "Pirates of Penzance" tonight and over the weekend. Then two more rehearsals next week and the first of five performances begins on Thursday.

So until next time - happy knitting!

Blogger and Knitting

Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad

After some research and much consideration, I decided to stay here at Blogger. It seems all the free services have issues one way or another. It is somewhat comforting to know you all have the same issues with emails, spacing, etc. as I do. I also save (on my second address) the addresses of people who respond by email and reply that way.

I did look at the HaloScan forums and found that link you sent, Twig. Thanks for thinking of me and sending it. I tried pasting the html and it made things *very* wonky. Maybe because I really did not know where to paste it. So I did away with it. Blogger it is - at least for now.

Knitting Preview

Here is the almost finished Soleil. I decided to knit the neckline in a scoop instead of the V after reading comments on the Knitty Coffee Shop. Most everyone said the V was quite deep. I took Ballet Camisole (by the same designer) and will use that neck. I hope to finish tomorrow or Wednesday.

Wednesday is July 4th. While you are picnicking and listening to the orchestra while watching the fireworks, think of me as I will be working a symphony performance for the holiday.

Have a patriotic 4th of July!

Blogger Rant

Knitting content soon - but in the meantime:

I love that you all comment, and when I comment on your blogs, you send me a personal email. I would love to be able to do that in an efficient manner as well. With Blogger, there seems to be no way to do that!

So I downloaded Haloscan (many of you use this) and lost ALL the previous comments. The only way (according to the help forums on Haloscan) to get the old comments back is to cut an paste them all in. I have no idea how to do that, and if I did know how, it would take a long time to transfer 3 years of comments. Haloscan is not an option.

So - as much as I would love to be able to just email you back, I cannot unless you have your email available somewhere on your blog or profile.

I think this is a big short coming in Blogger. And if there are programs that will do this, they should be compatible with one another. Why even Mac and Windows talk to each other (now.)

Also - the spacing between paragraphs is always weird when I try to edit and publish posts. I am at a loss here. Maybe it is time to change blog hosts....

Did she fall off the face of the Earth?

Or was she sucked up by the great oboe vortex in the sky?

Neither - she was on a road trip.

First off, let me say thank you to everyone who commented on the baby items. I really enjoyed knitting the beanie and booties but found the blanket to be tedious. Not because the pattern was dull - I liked that - but because it was the same over and over. I like the variation of increasing, decreasing, short rows, etc.

And I wasn't the good time manager you might believe - the baby shower was June 16 (they were in town for father's Day) and I actually finished in the nick of time!

We left June 17 for Little Switzerland, NC to stop in at Wildacres for a day at the John Mack Oboe Camp. As you may remember, camp was cancelled last year because my beloved Mr. Mack fell ill and passed away. This one is the Legacy Camp - taught by his former students from CIM and who hold principal oboe positions in the Cleveland Orchestra. I had 2 students attend and it was a good experience for them. For me it was bittersweet...

Then we headed to Louisville to visit Jim's sister and family. Here are Jim and Lisa:

They live in the Highlands area that boasts the largest number of Victorian homes in any city. It was great to see them and their beautiful home.

Leaving their town, our route took us to Nashville and Memphis. I didn't know what the road was called until I saw this:

I had to pull over and jump out and take this shot! We also saw lots of this:

It was difficult to knit on the road because we drove so many miles (2270 in 6 days) and were *really* tired at night. I tried to knit while riding but it made me dizzy. It was when we returned home I was able to get some knitting done.

Here are the Almost Argyle socks from KnitPicks I began a while ago. I kind of like this pattern. It is nice but probably not one I would knit again - I prefer lacy. I do like the Eye of the Partridge heel, though. I think these will be finished by the weekend.

Remember Cece from ChicKnits? She has morphed into Soleil from Knitty. I liked the lace in the CeCe cardi, but not the band in front. I could not get the two sides to match the way I wanted. I may try it again at some point. Here is Soleil in KP Shine Sport:

That's about it for now - I hope the rest of your week is grand.

Blankie, Booties and Beanie

Fini!!

I began it on May 26 and finished June 11. The pattern is from Filatura di Crosa Baby and I used some Hobby Lobby acrylic/nylon "baby Bee" called Sweet Delight with #6 needles. It took 2 3/4 skeins (about 850 yards) of yarn.

Here is a close up of the diamond pattern:

I had yarn left over, so here are some booties I did. The pattern was on about.com, I think it is just called lacy baby booties. I used #4 needles for these.

And then I thought, why not a beanie as well - I liked the pinwheel decreases so chose this pattern:

And the side view:

So here is the ensemble:

I think this will keep that little Indiana baby (due in October) warm.

Beauty in the Burbs

Last night's view.

Yeah, Baby

The baby blanket is coming along.

Here we are at 19".

Only 20 more inches to go..... can she hang in there being monogomus to the blanket?

Ummmmm, well no.

I actually cast on the Argosy scarf tonight.

Change is good!

Here is a bit of eye candy outside my front door:

I don't know if I prefer pinky pink

Or crayon red

What do you think?

As I was walking this morning, I passed this tree. If my tree guy had even discussed topping a tree, I would fire him. But to do this is just a travesty.

I had to take a photo because it is unbelievable to me someone actually did this and got paid for it!

I can't believe the homeowner knew what he was in for. That tree service needs to be uprooted.

The poor tree.