knitting neels

I have been excessively busy over the last few weeks as you may have guessed from my prolonged silence. I have gone back to playing the piano and have decided to audition for some répetiteur courses this summer. A répetiteur is a pianist who plays for singers (as opposed to an instrumental accompanist who plays with all other instruments). It is a funny, specialised sort of thing to do. It requires good language skills – most songs are written in French, German, Italian, English or Russian – and a bent towards all things literary, as most lyrics are poems or are based on texts of the era. So in preparation, I am playing for lots and lots of singers and preparing with them for competitions, auditions, and recitals. It is fun, interesting and hard work – especially since I am still working in the shop! I am really enjoying the variety of it all and it is great to be back playing again.

Today I was supposed to be doing piano things but a combination of not feeling very well and snow flurries outside prompted me to cancel. I am really glad that I did! I am a bit knackered out from all my running around and am spending today keeping warm and drinking tea… and working my way through this great book I got at the shop during the week – 100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet. It is about 40:60 knit:crochet patterns. The crochet patterns have both written and charted instructions and use English terminology. This is what I’ve been working on this afternoon.

I have been making an effort to cycle more to get more daily exercise – either I cycle to work in town or I cycle to the train station and get the train to Blackrock. I have a little black metal basket that sits into a frame on my handlebars but it is very drab. I was thinking of dickying it up along these lines. The book is very nicely photographed and well laid out so I am looking forward to working my way through a variety of flowers. I was thinking about making a pile of daffodil heads and some more leaves for Spring time. Wouldn’t that be nice?

I have been chipping away at some other projects. I nearly have one sleeve of the Green Gable hoodie done.

I ripped out what I had done and re-knit the cuff on 5.5mm needles because it was too floppy. It is working up really quickly on 7mm needles and I cannot wait until it is done! In other news, I am the proud owner of some Wollmeise sock yarn, courtesy of Claire. Feast your eyes!

I bought it off her with the intention of making a pair of socks but the more I look at those colours, the more I think that it deserves to be a shawl of some description. It would be stunning!

The snow is starting to tumble down here so excuse me while I make a pot of tea and put my slippers up!