Halfway through

We're at the halfway mark of NaBloPoMo and things, blog wise, have been going amazingly well.

Avast is also going well as can be seen in the picture below

Apparently I can take pictures when I'm somewhat tired

I only have four more inches of the [lower] body to knit which should be finished tomorrow and then 18 more inches of stockinette! Thank god I'm small and can knit the smallest size of men's sweaters.

I had a concert tonight - I played in two trios. They both went relatively well with the main annoyance being that the stage crew put the stands for the Berlioz way too far apart and I just couldn't hear Ann so we would get off even though we were trying to listen to each other and we were making a lot of eye contact. That being said, it was only like that for the first min or so of the piece (so the first eighth). I'm just glad its over.

Its snowing - I think I can get behind the snow here though. The city actually keeps its streets clear so it'll snow, but its not super slushy on the sidewalk and there is basically no snow on the road. I also don't find it very cold when its snowing so I can walk around (assuming that I have enough clothing on) and not be freezing. Oh and I got another package from my mom, no yarn, but candy, two new pairs of pants (and I like them!) and some clothes that I left at home.

Done! - well almost

The last square of Lizard Ridge is knit and blocked! I finished it Saturday after my German mid-term (yes - I had a mid-term on a Saturday, because my school hates us). I don't remember what the colorway is but it is the same color way as the block that I knit for Twisted. Actually, I like the block I knit for them more than this one...

A close up of it unblocked

These are the last four blocks two of which are seamed already

Now all I have left is two seam two more blocks to the strip and then seam the strip of blocks to the blanket, then after that the border which I don't even want to think about. That being said I'm very glad that I've been seaming as I go because the extra warmth of the blanket on top of the one that I sleep under has been nice for the cold nights here. Now of course, because I hate doing all of the aforementioned things - other than sleeping - (though apparently I have wonderful seams despite the fact that I would pay someone t do it for me), I cast on a Jaywalkers and the Dove Socks from the new Kat Bordhi book. I'm knitting both of them out of Regia which makes things even harder because sock yarn snob tendencies.

That being said, I ordered three skeins of sock yarn from Tausendschön in der Specht (woodpecker), indische Gewuerze (Indian spices) and Seestern (starfish). So pretty, so very pretty. We emailed back and forth (because she was confused as to why I used paypal because she didn't realize that I didn't have an Austrian bank account) and she sending them out today so I should get them, hopefully, by the end of the week. Which should be around the time that my package of Cascade 220 for Avast gets here. I'm also supposed to be getting a package from a friend of mine full of goodies that she bought at Rheinbeck at some point (when she makes her way to the post office, in between writing papers/procrastinating - Liz, I love you, you're great) which means I need to pick up chocolate and yarn to send her as to make it a somewhat fair trade.

In non knitting news, its mid-term week. I had a aforementioned German mid-term on Saturday (which was better than I thought it'd be), my Mahler and theory mid-terms yesterday (the Mahler one went really well, the theory one...well I suck at theory but I did my best), and my music survey mid-term tomorrow afternoon which will probably be hellish. We had the listening test (which consisted of knowing the name, composer, and genre of 11 out of....at least 40 pieces, it was over 2 hours of music that we had to be accountable for) last Wednesday and I did amazingly badly on that. I also have a flute lesson tomorrow morning (which means I probably have to miss Wednesday knitting group - sorry guys!) which should go well. I bought the Reinecke flute sonata between Mahler and theory and am thinking about getting the his flute concerto and also the Widor flute sonata (despite the fact that another flute player in my program is playing it - I don't care, I love the piece).

Oh also, in more exciting news, I'm getting a wheel in late November (around Thanksgiving)! I'll be in England visiting a friend at Oxford so I'm going to try out the Ashford Joy (which I don't really want but I should try it), the Lendrum folding wheel, and the Louet Victoria (see an amazing review here). I'm leaning towards the Lendrum because of its sheer versatility, but the damn Louet is so tiny and portable (which is really important to me as I travel for school a lot and intend to take the wheel with me) - its 11 lb when in its case with all of the bobbins and such! (and 6lb by itself). I also keep telling myself that if I get the Louet I can always get another wheel later (though if I can get my hands on the fast flyer that they make for the Victoria, which apparently is is out there, I may be sold). We'll see I have a bit of time and testing to do.

Rowany goodness

I attempts to sweeten what was a bad day I went to The good yarn store in Vienna (there's a bunch of little ones that don't really have anything good, and this one isn't steller, but it is by far the best one we have here) - Zwei Glatt, Zwei Verkehrt (which I think means something along the lines of "knit two, purl two" and this is what I got...


Five balls of Rowan Pure Wool DK for the Red Light Special hat (I also bought the Rowan Classic book 22: Travel). It'll be my first foray in fair-isle knitting - I'm ambitious. I also will hopefully have at least one more square for Lizard Ridge done by the end of this weekend depending on how much time I have.

In other news, I finally called my new flute teacher who - because the Austrians seem to love their cell phones (aka. Handies) text messaged me the address that she teaches at, which as very amusing at 9:30 in the morning. After doing a quick google map search, it turns out that she's about 6 blocks away from the LYS that I bought all of the Rowan from - this could be dangerous to my bank account.