Hello, crafty and sundry!
My precccioussss…
I’m pretty sure I’ve not mentioned it before here, but I am a multi instrumentalist. Oh okay was… a long time ago… when I actually had instruments and could practice them. *giggles*
You see, I attended a prestigious art school for high school — Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas, Texas. You might have heard of some of the alumni, such as Erykah Badu, Norah Jones, Edie Brickell, and any other number of famous people. I was actually a French Horn major, but considering how expensive one of those is, I’ve not had one of my own… ever. While there, we also were required to take at least one year of piano… which is another instrument I don’t have. We have a full-sized keyboard as of the past year or two, but my brain gets really snotty about those versus real pianos. I need to get over that sometime and actually practice.
I also have dabbled on guitar, but our acoustics are taking up space in the garage. So that leaves my flute. I taught myself how to play it because why not, and this is actually my second. My first was a cheapie off of Ebay, while I picked up this one during exams when I was stationed in Monterey (and got a slight discount for being cute, hee hee). It currently lives under my desk on top of a cabinet, and when the baby was rampaging around pulling things down, I spotted it and pulled it out. She made some very concerned faces at the noises I made, and I ended up putting it away. Then something online reminded me of embouchures; that’s the way one holds their mouth to get noise out of these dratted things.
Now, for all that I was in band for French Horn for 8 years or so, no one had ever given me any real guidance on how to do it. Which means my range was somewhat limited; I naturally seem to perform better for lower ranges rather than the high soaring crap that most people associate a French Horn with. That goes for flute too; I have like, an octave and change that I can perform with any competency (and only just), and would vastly love to have an alto or bass flute to accommodate that.
To my vast bemusement, five minutes reading that wiki article gave me more insight than years and years of noodling. And so I decided to do a bit of practicing. To my pleasure, I managed to get some good sounds out of the noisestick, and finally had to put it away because I had definitely worn out my face. I’m hoping it will encourage me to practice more now that I finally have a really decent idea of what to do with it.
7th row doesn’t exist. But it did. But it didn’t.
Hooray, the Hellmath™® Section is complete!
I’ve started picking up the pace on my knitting again. The first side panel had a lot of ‘do this at a centimeter’ and I couldn’t be assed to deal with it for a couple of weeks. For one, because that’s a pain in the ass, and for two? The instructions for the other half of the front are, no shit, ‘Like left front piece, but mirrored, and make BUTTONHOLES.’ So that meant having some pretty extensive colour-coded notation for me to reference back to. There’s also a couple of sticky notes floating around my desk with actual row numbers written out if I need further reference. And well, if I make any little mistakes… that just adds to the uniqueness, right? Riiight. *laughs*
I’m also working another tiny charity hat, but left-handed this time. I cast it on when I was at Stitch ‘n Bitch last, because it was ungodly hot and we were out in the beer garden. That meant less table space to go around, so I didn’t want to wrestle with this panel and all the measuring it required.
I also need to get back to making the poor doll a proper outfit. My husband handed me my sheaf of knitting patterns that I printed to go through for her; they had somehow mixed in to my older daughter’s art desk. Whups. I probably should make myself finish the little hat first, if only so I don’t end up with a million projects languishing on the needles.
Languishing. Cheesecake. Really need to make another one and report back on that. Maybe when it’s not stupid hot.
<3