I've been a little busy

With teaching concluded I have had a little more knitting time. Here is the Luskentyre in a few more brief stages as I get closer to starting the arms! I thought I would never get to this point. Thanks to Marina's lessons on the Russian join, I am now using it on the neck band and will do so on the arms as well. I really like this technique. It takes a bit longer, but the results are great! Thank you, Marina.

I have also been working on V's German socks for the World Cup. Only a few days away, so I better get my a$^%s in gear. This is sock # 2, but I am working simultaneously, so sock # 1 isn't finished yet. I tend to be a little crazy about the socks matching PERFECTLY (it's a sickness), so I usually try to make them together if I have enough needles in that size. Incidentally, does it drive anyone else crazy that you can't get all the metric sizes in double points here in the US?

Amazing Lace

This is my good friend and partner in crime, Pink Puzzle Wrap by Sharon Miller in black Kidsilk Haze. I call her Pinkie. We have been friends now for quite a while. It has been a love/hate relationship for the two of us with misunderstandings that split us up for weeks at a time. With a little therapy here and there we have managed to keep our partnership from completely unraveling so far. We have done a little traveling together. I work and she comes along for support. I think that support is the main reason our relationship has weathered the tough times so far. She has been there for me through long lines, students not showing up for lessons, traffic that just will not move, never-ending rehearsals and just the day to day passing of time. I really don’t know what I would do without her. We are both looking forward to the Amazing Lace and hope that these tests of endurance and strength will only bring us together to a high point and/or culmination in our partnership. This is our last chance and we grasp the challenge with both hands.

Harassment by any other name.....

is just another way to say I love you, right, Miss A.? Here’s your D@&%n update. :0D

Who could resist this little beak-face, I ask you? The love of my life.



I have been able to get some work done on Luskentyre this weekend. Just 21 more rows to neck shaping…whooohooo! Then on to the tortuous arms. Marina recently confessed to hating arms. I do, too.It is definitely the faster switching of colors and also the decreases. It isn’t as mindless as the body for me. I think that is why I have stalled on Rhinegold. BUT! I will pick it up later in the week. I am determined to get these two done so I can start some other ventures. Maybe Norsk Strikkedesign sweater……maybe another Fair Isle? I don’t know yet. I have my eye on several and have the yarn for several already at the wait.





Now, since the alligators in Florida are in the media so much…I will give you a gator story.
One of my best friends in high school, S. and I used to go out to her god-father’s lake home and swim almost every day in the summer. He lived in a wonderful cove next to the highway on a private lake in East Texas. There was also an indoor/outdoor carpeted rafty thing that we could lie on and float around on in the cove. It was about 4x4 and made of wood but had something that kept it afloat. We didn’t ask, we were in high school. One of us would jump in, swim the rafty thing out and off we would go into sunshining-wrinkle-obtaining bliss. It was the life........until one day.
It was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon when your body has had too much sun and you aren’t sure if what you are seeing is real or imagined. We had been sunning in silence for at least an hour. I looked at the log for quite and while and finally ventured a syllable to my friend.
“S.?” I said.
“I know, I see it. What is it?” she asked before I even had the syllable out.
“Do you think it’s a log?” I asked hoping.
We stood up. It went down. Oh crappola. We were in trouble. No way to get the rafty thing to shore without someone paddling from underneath the water. I wasn’t getting in. She wasn’t getting in. No one was around. You would think with all these houses around, someone would be outside. But, this WAS East Texas in summer. No one goes outside in 100 degree weather with 500 % humidity. No one except an idiot……
It came up again even closer. Sheeesh! No denying it now. We were being stared at by a large reptile. Oh-MY-GOD!
We were no girlie girls. We had been swimming in swamps, SWAMPS! for God’s sake! But there is a difference in thinking there may be water moccasins and alligators and KNOWING there are such creatures and that they KNOW about you.
We did the only thing that any self-respecting Southern girl would do under these circumstances. We screamed for help at each and every passing car.
Wait! Someone pulled over. It was a car full of cowboys in boots and hats and cowboy attire. No not a truck, a car FULL. They ran down the grassy shoulder ( it was not a grassy knoll, stop it!) and asked what our cotton pickin’ problem was? We screamed back. Alligator! Of course he was nowhere in sight. They laughed and made fun.
“A alligator!” they said in stupid girl voices. “Eeeeewww!”
He rose from the depths. They screamed.
One ran back to the car and our hero of the day lept back out of the car in, I kid you not, green jogging shorts with white piping, tube socks and cowboy boots. No shirt. No one ever claimed heros are all fashion conscious. Were those shorts under his jeans? We will never know.
He got to the edge of the lake, took off the boots and socks and dove in. He swam to us, pushed us to the boat house that we came from and let us get on the ground. We shyly said thank you and promptly ignored him when he thought he might ask one of us for a date. That’s high school gratitude for you.
We never sunbathed out there again. I still miss it.

Sock pics

I am making something special for V. for this. The problem is, I actually started it out as this.

Oooops! I showed it to him. "That's Belgium!" Oh, geeez! So I unraveleded...again! And came up with this.

Ok, much better. :0) And he's much happier. Nothing worse than upside down socks during a World Cup, for God's sake! And I can assure you they will be worn each and every game....at 3:00am.
I just received this in the mail! The patterns are fantastic. I got it from Arnhild. She is absolutely lovely. I am hoping to do some ordering with her soon for one of the patterns in Norsk Strikkedesign.

Here are a couple of photos from my back alley. They aren't in full bloom yet, but I couldn't resist the pics.

Sirens of the Woodwinds

Here is my excuse for not much blogging or knitting this week. Rehearsals and concerts every night. EVERY night. We were fortunate enough to get to play Dvorak's New World Symphony with guest conductor Grzegorz Nowak from Poland. It was a lot of fun and the orchestra sounded great on it. Can't you tell from the smiles? This is the flute and oboe section from the symphony. From left to right-Becky, LeeAnne, Laura and moi. One of my youngest students came to one of the shows to hear the English horn solo and brought me these. Aren't they lovely? What a sweetheart!



I was able to do a little (I said LITTLE) on Lusentyre in between things and also finished my Embossed Leaves socks. I LOVE the way they turned out and the fit is fantastic! Too bad it is summer here now. Alas, I must wait to wear...or turn the air conditioner way down. Hmmmmmmmm. I opt for door # 2.





I received a yarn order and am starting a pair of really fun socks for V. They......well...I will keep you in suspense and post some pics tomorrow. See you then!

Sweet Madness

There has been a little knitting going on around here. Voila! My new sock building in progress. One down, one to go. This is the Embosed Leaves pattern from IK. Lovely, eh?

I started the Pink Puzzle Wrap by Sharon Miller a few months ago. Ahhh, but you see, it's in black. So perceptive, my pretties! I am going to be working it this summer in the Amazing Lace . heh heh...that makes me laugh every time. I am easily amused. Does anyone else here remember what a Sleestack is, by the way? Or am I just that damn old?




The Luskentyre making her slow progress. Now that the symphony season is almost over there should be more time to slow down and knit a little....I'm dreaming. What oboist can rest when there are reeds to be made, I ask you? And when AREN"T there reeds to be made?



I will leave you with a small road rage story.

I was coming home after a particularly long and grueling day work. (I know.....how grueling can it get for a musician?...just bear with me). I was on a long stretch of fairly empty highway when a pick-up truck comes speeding up behind me and starts tailgating me. Now, I understand that no one likes to be behind someone else going slower than themselves. There are two lanes in case this imbecile didn't notice. One is designed ESPECIALLY for passing, although most around here use it as the slower-than-a-one-legged-bicyclist lane. Anyhow, he whips around me and hits his brakes. People, there is no one else on the road! No one. There is no cause for that. I cussed at him. Oh, yes. I know...you are hard pressed to believe this if you know me. (shut up, Michele) Upon seeing me mouth obscenities in his rearview mirror, he held up the universal sign for a hole and he and his buddy laughed and laughed. THAT DID IT! I was willing to let it go up until this point. Even with Dr. Laura playing on my car radio. (Don't judge me, it's the only radio station up there that I can get.) But, the combination of Dr. Laura's condescention and this sign were just too much. I started frothing at the mouth and instinctively speeding up. Ok, I almost pushed my gas pedal through the floor. Think rabid here. No one calls me a hole. I pulled up next to these two twenty-something boys and spewed forth froth and curses that I had never heard the likes of. Neither had they, apparently. They hit their brakes and made an effort to stay at least one mile behind me from then on. :0) I win.

Finished!!!!

Just in the nick of time, I have finished the Sockapaloooooza socks. Of course, the blue that I first chose to reheel with showed in my mailbox yesterday. A little too late. It got lost in the mail. :0( But, I must say, I think this shade of blue turned out better anyway. What do you think?








I have also finished three squares for Warming Grace. I hope they make it to Canada on time. (fingers crossed here) I think it is such a fabulous thing. I can't wait to see all of the finished blankets.







And now for a little fun. Here is a pic I snapped on the way home from work. If you look closely, you will see she is still in the car and she seemed to be in fine health, anyway..... The firemen were kind of just standing around scratching their heads.