Swede sings bass in a choir and he spent much of yesterday, Sunday, rehearsing a piece of fairly epic proportion by J.S. Bach.  He came back home for a quick lunch break and said he didn’t realise that for the concert at 6pm the men were supposed to wear a lilac-coloured tie. This is a man who hates ties and owns maybe one, but not one in this particular hue.

In a throwaway statement he asked if I could knit one.

Well, of course I could.  I just happened to have the very colour in Drops Paris cotton.  You see – it is good to have this yarn stash taking up space in the apartment!  As usual Ravelry came to the rescue.  With a quick pattern search I found this: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/seed-stitch-tie-recipe  (Note: on Ravelry my username is Clarinutty.)

I started the project in the afternoon at around 1.30 and was done by around 4.30.  There was almost smoke coming out of my size 4mm wooden needles!

Quick dash to the church, tie handover and good luck kiss.  Then the dedication really began: this turned out to be a two-hour show on rock hard pews.  I did bring a cushion but, after a painful while, I was forced to stand at the back.  In fact, my tricky back is still twinging in protest from sitting there as long as I did.  Still, I was proud of my Swede’s singing efforts and it was a very nice acoustic to hear a full choir with orchestra.  There was quite a lot of recetative – the kind of story-telling with lots of words in an operatic style that is half speaking, half singing.  No surprise this was in German, it being by Bach and all, but my tired brain was not doing well at following the Swedish translation in the rather hefty programme of small text…

As a musician myself – I studied music at degree level and was a music teacher in England – I am always keen to hear and support live music, and to support my other half, of course.  I have a concert coming up soon so I have practised clarinet today.  I have also been dilligent in my Swedish studies and some other chores in between bed rest.  Today has been a tough day energy and illness-wise so I fear there won’t be much time for knitting today.  Lets hope I have more quality crafting and time during the Easter break and that I can get over today’s setback to go onwards and upwards in recovery.