This has been a strange weekend. My gig was one of the weirdest I've had to date. The music and the conductor were Chinese. The biggest problem being that the conductor didn't speak English. He could do numbers and the instruments and his Italian for the terms was good, but he had to have a translator. I know music is the universal language and all but this was all a bit strange. I do have to say that he had one of the clearest conducting techniques I've seen in a while...then again he had to or there really would have been a problem. And the rehearsals were the quietest I've been to in a while too. Mostly because everyone was hanging on the conductors every twitch to try and figure out what the heck he wanted. Very interesting.

Someone recently asked me if there were pieces that were more fun to play than to listen to. My answer was a resounding YES. However, the reverse is also true. Enough said.

I promised crafting progress and crafting progress you shall have. This is the status of sleeve number 1 for Dusty:

I know it looks rather odd but remember that the sleeves (just like the rest of the pattern) are worked from side to side. My biggest concern at this point, I'm definitely going to run out of yarn. I still have the second sleeve and the cuffs and edging to do not to mention the seaming. I see a run to Michael's in my future.

And I also promised the tale of my yarn safari in Vancouver. Well, like I said, it wasn't too terribly interesting. I had a few hours the last afternoon I was in Vancouver so I took a trip over the the Knit & Stitch Shoppe. (Do check out their website. They have a virtual tour which is way cool.) Turns out there is a significant difference between West Vancouver and Downtown Vancouver. The most significant being that it cost me $20 to get there by cab! It was a lovely shop though. They had a ton of sock yarn and all sorts of different lovely yarns to pet. I really liked one sweater they had on display made with a bulky wool that came in one HUGE skein and was $75. If I thought I could have gotten it on the plane with all my other stuff (since $75 of yarn was definitely NOT going in my checked bag) I would have gotten it. In the end I decided to buy three skeins of Koigu for the clapper. Yeah I know I can totally get this at the same price here by driving down the street but I really liked these colors:

I believe that's enough justification for any souvenir. :) I managed to get back to the hotel for $2 because the nice people in the shop told me about the bus that went right to my hotel! I sure wish I had know that on the way there! Overall it was a great outing and I'm very happy with my purchase. Now I just have to wind it up and find the time to knit it.

But first I've gotta finish Dusty!