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.

Sock day!

So because I also had today off I knitted the Jaywalker socks....all day.

This was at 11:10am

And it turned into this by 10:40ish pm!

I was a bit skeptical of this pattern at first because of all of the complaints I heard about it not fitting right (it being too small/people not being able to fit it over their heels) and I'm not a fan of Regia (which I think I've mentioned before) but, I think I'm a fan of this pattern. It also has the ability to show of some of the Regia colorways really well (not this one, but I just about died when I saw a picture of one on Ravlery). I like it because its totally mindless knitting but with more excitement than a plain stockinette stitch sock. Anything with a pattern that I can memorize in with in four rounds and requires almost no counting on my part makes perfect conversation knitting when I'm knitting and chatting with my non knitting friends.

You also might be able to notice in the second picture that I did a different heel than what the pattern calls for (the cuff is also p1, K1tbl but that isn't nearly as interesting to talk about). So I really don't like heel flaps because I find the heel flap portion amazingly boring (I love the actual turning of the heel bit though) and I hate picking up and knitting gusset stitches. They always look to messy to me and then my inner perfectionist comes out and frustration results. Sooo, instead of going the heel flap route I decided that I'd do the short row heel thing that is in Cat Bhordi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters book. Of course - I haven't knit any of the cuff down socks in there which made this adventure a little more parlous. What I ended up doing was putting the arch expansion in the back of the leg, turning the heel the way that the Jaywalker pattern advised me to (I didn't have the energy to do the exact one in the Bordhi book but I really wanted to - next time...), and then worked the "wing stitches" (which translates into the stitches that were used to expand for the instep) the same way that Bordhi writes how to in her book. It made for a much, much cleaner heel in my opinion, though a bit too triangular for my taste (which you can't really tell in the picture). The only other problem I'm running into is that I may run out of yarn for this project....Its not a big deal because I don't think the dye lot is too important with this yarn (I see no discernible pattern color wise) but we'll see, I have about three inches left until the toe which I will put a life line into. And, if need be, I'll just buy another skein (well its not actually a skein its a center-pull ball) of the Regia as the only other sock yarn I have here that I'd be willing to substitute for the toe is blue...they don't go together.

In non sock news - I know i've said it before, but this is the last time I'll say it (hopefully) I am Lizard Ridge is done! I know its not totally done the border is non-existent and its final blocking won't happen until this summer when I'm back in Portland, but It is still amazing and does a good job at helping to keep me warm at night. I'm going to bring it to Wednesday knitting and to school on Wednesday as I'll actually have room in my bag (two of my classes are canceled all of next week - its exciting) and I know some of the people at knitting want to see it and at at least 10 people at school want to see it.

So ya know how I said I was going to see Pique Dame yesterday - that didn't happen. Melinda and I got to the Staatsoper for standing room tickets three and a half hours before it started and there were already 30-40 people there, and the amazing part (not that the huge line wasn't astonishing enough) was that almost all of them were residence of Vienna! Normally when I go to the opera to get standing room tickets I see a bunch of tourists who are dressed in plain clothes etc, etc. not this time. It was crazy. Then Melinda noticed that one of the standing room areas was closed so we were were just like "fuck it - we can see it later" as its being preformed at least three more times this month I think and yesterday was the second night.

Lastly, so from the looks of this I'm going to be posting everyday this month, and while I'd love to post about knitting every single day - I don't know if thats possible (well it is, but it wouldn't be enjoyable) so what do you guys want to read about?

(P.S. Neuroknitter - you rock!)