knitting neels

Oh Thermal. Such a rich, warm colour. Such a springy, crunchy texture. Such a…. small circumference??

I had six inches knitted and paused to pet it a little. I was confident about my knitting. I had placed markers at strategic points whilst casting on. I had counted and re-counted my stitches four times before I started. Ok, the waffle pattern for the body didn’t quite match up – maybe I had two stitches too many or two few. No biggie. After six inches, I thought it would be fun to measure the width, just to see how springy this ribbed stitch is. Hmmm. It was 14″ across. I stretched it out alot: 14 and a half inches. Oh dear. Even on the best of days, I am definitely not 28″ around. I hurriedly recounted my stitches. I had ten stitches too few. Too FEW! I counted my stitches four times and consistently came up with 252 stitches, which has led me to seriously question my ability to count properly (maybe it is just as well I didn’t do higher level maths for Leaving Cert). This morning I just had to bite the bullet, rip it all out and start again. It’s not going so quickly today, maybe because I’ve got those ten extra stupid stitches that just had to make a big difference!

But it’s not all bad. The Academy has a music festival every year in February. By a festival, I mean a week of in-house competitions. It’s something to prepare for and a good opportunity to perform. This year, I entered a French Chansons competition with a singer friend of mine, as well as the Advanced Performance competition, which is just for Masters students. We were pipped at the post in the Chansons – we got 89 and the winners got 90. I played my mid-year recital programme in the Advanced competition this afternoon and surprise! I won!

Yay!

This is always a busy time of the year for piano playing, but it has its rewards, some of which are not so obvious. I really enjoy the social aspect of doing competitions. This afternoon I got to catch up with some people that I haven’t seen in a few months. Being so busy with piano also makes me appreciate knitting more; it is the perfect antidote. I’ve got some patterns brewing and I’m looking forward to sitting down and talking them out with Lisa.