Ravellenic Games...Will She Medal? [Commercial Break where we see her appearance on tomorrow's Today show wearing the medal]

Oh sorry, was that a spoiler?

Yes, despite joining up with Team Apathy whose motto is "We don’t care if we finish or not," I finished my Ravellenic Games project. Just shows what you can do if you lower your expectations. No Norwegian sweater this time. One pair of socks. And I still feel like I barely made it.

But I did!

I finished up the cast off while watching volleyball Saturday morning.

Speaking of, here's a close up:

Still loving the "invisible" cast off.

I followed the pattern on this sock more than most. (As opposed to just plugging the lace pattern into my usual formula.) I did have to change the lace because I adjusted the stitch count, and then I had to start the gusset way sooner. I did follow the pattern's method for a traditional flap heel (done toe-up in this case).

It worked very well, and I think it will be my new go-to heel.

Another thing I did yesterday was make some sock blockers out of wire coat hangers.

Now I can block my socks, and more conveniently, I can take pictures without wearing them. The shape looks a little odd and they're not tall enough for the long socks I like to make, but I think they'll work.

Project Stats
Started: 27 Jul '12
Finished: 11 Aug '12
Pattern: Jane Fairfax by Mary the Hobbit ($1.28)
Materials: Zen Yarn Garden Serenity 20 (Romi's Garden) 1 skein ($32)
As a general note, these socks were knit from the yarn that I bought in Sarnia (Ontario) on a trip home. It was dyed by a local woman. It was a little pricier than I usually go but I decided to get it anyway. When I started knitting with it, I could tell it felt different than the usual sock wool. That's when I looked at the label and realized they were part cashmere. Ohhhh, well that changes things. It was wonderful to work with, and I have to say it made any other project I picked up feel like baler twine!!

By finishing the socks, I crossed the finish line in the three events I could enter with them: Sock Put, One Skein Sprint and Lace Long jump.

Here are my badges to prove it:

I was called to the Ravelry "podium" with the following declaration:

Now will Ravthletes and spectators alike bow your heads for the stately yet thrilling Ravellenic Games anthem... dum de dum dum … dummmmmm .. DA DUMMM!and the crowd roars with excitement at yet another successful bid for Ravellenic Glory is achieved!

And, as the title of this post implied, you can look for me tomorrow on Today. (Ok, just kidding.)

Ravellenics...or whatever

The Olympics have started again. And so they are celebrated by knitters everywhere with their own competitive events. Events like afghan marathon, balance beads, cable steeplechase, charity rowing, colourwork cross-country, cowl jump, double-knit boxing, felted freestyle, frogging trampoline, handspun heptathlon, holiday hurdles, lace longjump, 
scarf hockey, shawl sailing, single skein sprint, sock put, synchronized stash busting, weaving vault, WIPs wrestling, and more.


I have participated in a couple of the winter games (the knitting ones, I mean, not the actual athletic ones, obviously), but really didn't think I was going to get into it over the summer games. Even though I knit year round, I still kind of feel that knitting just belongs with winter. And I have a lot going on right now.


But I took just a little peek at the Ravelry group for the games and the first team I saw was Team Apathy. And I thought...that's me! That's where I belong. So I joined. I know, right? If you were actually apathetic you'd never join the team. But whatever, nobody cares enough to argue the point. The best part was, they didn't even care if I cast on. So I could join, "participate," and not actually have to do a bloody thing! Brilliant! (Oops, sorry. There are a few too many !s there for someone on Team Apathy. Won't let it happen again.)


And once I had joined and realized I had not one, but two, gatherings to attend to celebrate the opening ceremonies (both of which I'd be knitting at anyway), I started to wonder....what events do they have this year? What yarn do I have to use? What project do I need to start anyway for that trip next week?


And so I started another pair of socks.

Third time's the charm! That's how many times I had
to reknit this toe tonight. But I think I'm off and
running now...

(I'm almost done the one pair I have going, after all.) I figure it should qualify in two events: sock put and single skein sprint. And one of my sisters wanted to learn to double knit while we're at the cottage next week. So if that actually happens, I could enter the double-knit boxing.


Or not...doesn't matter. Whatevs...

Progress by the end of the night.

Dum Dum di Dum...

That's the opening strains of the Canadian national anthem, in case you didn't recognize it. (I know it looks a lot like the wedding march written like that.) But anyway, look at what my wonderful little sister sent me--my own Ravelympics gold medal to wear on my imaginary podium!

I didn't finish my sweater by the end of the Olympics so I didn't get the gold medal [web] badge that Ravelry offered or the Knitting Olympics [web] medal from the Yarn Harlot's site.

Thankfully, she grades on effort not results! And given the choice, I'd take a chocolate medal any day! (Not that I dare eat it.)

I haven't strung it up on a ribbon and worn it yet, but don't I look proud enough to do it?

Thanks, Patricia! You're a sweetie.

More Whistler

And so it has come to this: knitting straight jackets.Nooo...it's just the body of my Whistler before the armholes have been cut into it.

It had been a whole week without working on Whistler. I had been making the Bella Mittens I owed to someone, and finished them just in time to get them blocked and delivered on Sunday morning. The second pair turn out just like the first. (Really lovely...still a good pattern and I love that wool.)

Although I missed my Whistler, it was probably a good mental break. But Sunday evening I had a chance to sit down with it again and knit up the last seven rows of the body. It's a good thing I didn't push myself and do them at midnight the closing day of the Olympics because they included all the back shoulder and neckline shaping. It would have been too much to handle that late.
It's kind of hard to tell if a sweater fits if your arms are still stuck in it, but from what Troy and I could tell, it looks about about right.

The only shot we got of the back was blurry (apologies), but you can get an idea of what it'll be like.
Today at lunch I got the sleeves done up to the colourwork. I stopped to take stock and see if I had done enough increases yet and then measured the length while I was at it. Surprise, surprise, they were already long enough!

Now I will stop working on them two-at-a-time and start the colourwork on the first one tomorrow at lunch (with any luck). This will also give me a chance to try to put together some pictures and explanation of how I've been doing intarsia in the round. (Which you can't really do, but I found a way.) I had someone on Ravelry who's working on his own Whistler ask me to explain how I did it, and words completely failed. Maybe some pictures will help.


PS: Also on the weekend, I wound my purple mohair for this project I wrote about back in August. I am so excited about starting a swatch for it. Spring is coming, and I need to greet it wearing a purple mohair Tshirt with ruffles!

Ravelympics Wrap Up

I owe you a post about my Whistler sweater which I did not finish. (Accepting all sad faces and sympathetic noises now.)

By Sunday I would have been very happy to have finished the body of the sweater. I knit steadily, even through the gold medal hockey game. When I hit the section of solid red, I just flew.

But I had no less than four phone calls with family on Sunday--we had to celebrate the gold, you see! And that was just fine with me. My left hand was threatening to just walk out on the whole deal.

At some point in the afternoon I decided I was going to go til midnight and just do what I could do.

I ended just seven rows short of finishing the body. But the good new is: I'm just seven rows short of finishing the body!! And my sleeves are almost half done. So this is good.

I later read on the Ravelry "rules" that they were cutting people off at midnight Pacific time. That would have given me three more hours. I definitely would have finished the seven rows then, but it wouldn't have been a good start to the week.

So I will content myself with a very good start on my Whistler sweater even if I don't get the Ravelympics medal. I will have to put it aside for a little bit to catch up on the rest of my life (and a pair of Bella mittens that I owe to someone). I am now thinking that I will finish it on time to wear it this spring as a replacement for a jacket. (It's really designed for that anyway--it's a little warm to wear as a regular sweater.)

PS: I really wanted to get a picture of what I have done so far: me in the sweater with my arms pinned to my side because there are no armholes yet. Hands and forearms in the sleeves, locked together by the cable needles because I'm knitting them two-at-a-time. But that "rest of my life" bit left me no time for it--sorry!

PPS: The Yarn Harlot did finish her Whistler, and you can see a pic here with her thoughts on the Knitting Olympics. (You can also see the medal I missed out on.) Remind me why I shouldn't hate her just a little bit for finishing...

No title: brain not working

<-- The maple leaf motif took shape on the front of the sweater yesterday and today.

My brain has been fried. I can barely string two words together.

I hope you are content with pictures:

The "nest" I have been inhabiting for the last two days.

All I need is a couch, my charts and a lot of string. (I had five balls going at this point.)

By the time I stopped on Saturday, the front colourwork is almost done:
Only a few more rows til I'm into some solid red. What a break that will be!

And the back:

Good night!

Anyone got Some Mojo to Spare?

I seem to be missing mine.

At times I am steady at it, at others I just can't haul it all out and work on it. Can we say heavy, awkward, and brain-consuming?

The most brain consuming part is how different it is from traditional fair-isle colourwork. Fair-isle is extremely structured and works with small motifs repeated over a row. It's what I'm used to and it makes a lot of sense to me. It just clicks.

This Norwegian stuff is quite, not completely, but quite different. Where fair-isle might pattern two colours 1-5-1-5-1-5-1 etc., this pattern does more like 1-7-1-9-1-9-1-3-1-4-1. Not only different intervals, but throwing in that even number after all the odds! You have to really watch yourself. (Knock on wood--no rip backs for me yet because of the pattern. Pat on back.)

And then there's this "rest of my life" that keeps pounding on the door of my available time. If it were just a week, I think I could have put it all off. But for two weeks? That was just a little too much to ask this time around. Bills to be paid, insurance claims to be filed, fires to build, [minimum amount of] laundry to do, etc, etc, you know how it goes.

But have I given up? NO! And a special shout-out is deserved by my number 1 and 2 cheerleaders, Bonnie and Patricia--thanks, guys!

I am on the brink of a three-day weekend and plan to use it, to wring every available stitch out of it. Yes, there will still be other things to do (cooking and laundry come to mind; the bathroom can wait til next week) but I will simply treat those as necessary breaks to the knitting.

Once I'm set up at home on my own couch with the fire going, I suspect it's going to be a lot harder to distract me. (Although the Olympic events do a pretty good job of it.)

I need to finish the front and back:

And then the sleeves:
They're a little longer than last time I showed you, but not a lot! But you have to admit they look very neat and well-ordered don't they. Partly because I have taken a trick out of the sock knitters' book and tucked the ball for each sleeve inside the sleeve!
Isn't that a clever trick! It does make it heavier to hold but totally worth it in my book.

One more note about the colourwork. It had never occurred to me before that knitting while reading a pattern is very similar to playing an instrument while reading the music. (I'm thinking of a piano where you can glance down at your fingers to see where they are.) The same sort of eye movements (read a bit of pattern, glance down; find your place in the pattern and read a little more, glance down...) and hand-eye coordination.

Fair-isle uses all the familiar chords and leads you along so you can almost guess where the melody's going. This Norwegian colourwork uses very unusual chords and jumps in unexpected intervals. (There's a lot of looking up and down from work to pattern.)

It's been fun learning a new tune.

Prelims are Over

If I were an alpine skier, I just caught too much air on a jump.

If I were a figure skater, I just turned my triple into a double.

If I were a biathlete, I just missed three of my five shots.

If I were a certain hockey team, I just lost the last game of the round robin.

In other words: I'm not out, but I am risking my place on the medal stand.

The back. I'm through my first section of

three-colour stranding. (Thank goodness!)

Things have slowed quite a bit. Saturday was a wash out for knitting; nothing got done til the very end of the day. Then I made myself put everything else aside and set myself up for some travel knitting on Sunday.

And then on Sunday I got the sleeves started. Now, before you get excited, this does not mean that I got the front/back done (which would be the normal order of things). But I had the [brilliant] idea that I could start the sleeves to take with me now that the body of the sweater was confined to the house.

It was a [brilliant] idea that has worked out quite well. So on the drive to/from church on Sunday I got both sleeves done up to the colourwork. that afternoon I worked on the body of the sweater at home. And then in the evening I took the sleeves with me as I went to watch a certain round robin hockey game and got the bottom colourwork done on both of them.

Now that I just have miles of grey stocking stitch to do on the sleeves, I am going to do them two at a time on two cable needles. I've never done this before, but I think this is a nice project to try it out on.

Oh--surprise! I did the inside hem of the sleeves in goldenrod.

Since it will be folded into the inside and never seen,

it's a nice little happy detail just for myself.

Two-at-a-time is supposed to be a little more efficient, and at the very least I will only have to count the rows between in the increases once instead of twice, and the increases will match exactly on both sleeves. (Not that I've ever had the problem of them not matching before but preventive measures can still be appreciated even if they might seem unnecessary.)

Will it be confusing working on the body of the sweater and the sleeves at the same time? I don't think so. One thing that makes this possible is the interchangeable tips of my cable needle "system." I only have one set of the right sized needle tips, but I can unscrew them from the needles in the body and then use them on the sleeves. A little inconvenient, but not that bad. Or at least that's what I think going into it.

The very astute of you will realize that I actually have two sets of cable needles going in the sleeves, and shouldn't I need two sets of tips the right size then? Well, no. The only needle that really matters is the right one, the one that forms the new stitches. The left one is just there to let the old one go and really doesn't get a say in anything.

So I put a pair of smaller tips on the left side and the right sized tips on the right side. Then I still don't have to buy two sets of tips. Am I cheap or what? (Resourceful too.)

Alright, enough for now. I have to get back to knitting. Wish me luck on the two at a time and all this needle swapping!!

ANOTHER update? Well, why not!

I wondered if I was updating too often on a solid grey sweater, but you're still reading, so I guess not.

This is what twelve inches of sweater looks like!

Reached this point this evening. Took only the small break to take this picture before diving into some colour!!

About the time I should be stopping for the night, my fourth ball of grey ran out, and I packed it in for the day.
Looking forward to more colour tomorrow, but not really to the rows where I have to carry three colours along. But that's where it comes time to prove the Knitting Olympics are not for weenies!

It's a Horse Race!

Apparently, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (aka the Yarn Harlot) and I are really close as to progress on our respective Whistlers. (We're both doing them for the Ravelympics--imagine that!) This is assuming her blog is current and she hasn't done gobs of knitting since today's post.

Her first mistake could have been avoided by doing the cast on working with both ends of the same ball of yarn. Just saying.

Her second mistake...is not a mistake as far as I can tell. I did goldenrod on the bottom colourwork. So did another Raveller who just finished her Whistler. I think Stephanie has somehow misread the pattern, undid something that was right and reknit it with the wrong colour. Poor Stephanie.

And her third point is true. Knit everywhere.

TAB: Tendinitis Avoidance Break

So I was right about Tuesday: only seven rows done (about an inch). I have to give a shout out to my coach, David, who shouted, "KNIT KNIT KNIT" in my face right when I needed it. Otherwise that total would have been even lower. And another shout out to my trainer, Wendy, who provided me with chocolate right when I needed it.

Today I've had a lot more time to make some real progress.

Between Tuesday and today, I've gotten 3.25 inches done and that gives me 9.5 inches from the foldline. Two and a half more to go before the colourwork starts. Can I get that done tonight? We'll see.

I also finished another ball of the main colour. I'm averaging one every two days. With 12 balls of MC, this would get me done in 24 days. Not fast enough! (Seriously, I'm not really pressuring myself to finish this in the 17 days of the Olympics.)

If the wrists can keep it up this evening, there's a good chance I'll knit for more hours today than NBC's Olympics coverage (not counting the 3am replay). I talked to my mom in Canada this morning. I was jealous when she said she can catch coverage any time she turns on the TV; there's always something running.

Ok, I think my wrists, hands and elbows have had enough of a break. Time to get back to my miles and miles of dark grey stocking stitch...
If I keep at it, it has to end sometime!

Knitting Olympics: Day 4

Today was a good day: about 2.5 inches knit since last night.

The paperclip marks where I started. (This is a good way to keep yourself motivated. Progress is too hard to see on 12 inches. But marking where you started that day gives you something shorter to measure against. It's not cheating; it just seems like it.)

I am now just over 6" of 12" I have to do before starting the next colour chart. It is quite a slog. It's a good thing I'm a stick-with-it kind of person.

The other way to measure progress is that I did finish another ball of MC wool. Woo hoo! (I guess...progress is made, but I don't want to run out before I'm finished!)

This was an exceptional day for time allowed for knitting; unfortunately progress tomorrow will not be nearly as good. But I do have 13 days left...

Laying the Groundwork

Look what has arrived! Some lovely Dale of Norway "Falk" (superwash wool). The grey is just what I wanted. (I picked it from a one inch tassel of four strands. It's a little hard to tell from that what it will look like in bulk so I'm relieved I like it.) What I like is that it's not as heavy or solid as straight black would be, but dark enough to give the contrast you need for colourwork.

The wool is for my Whistler sweater, of course.

Less than three weeks until the great cast on for the Ravelympics!

I have started swatching, hoping to have everything set to go the moment the opening ceremonies start.

I've found out that I don't have the needles I need. For one thing, this sweater is knit on much smaller needles than I expected and I just don't have many straights in those sizes.

I'm aiming for 24 stitches to 4 inches. The bottom section is 26 sts/4". The next is the right gauge but it's done continental style (obviously I'm a little looser continental) and it's much less even. So I tried two different bigger needles, but both of those came out 23 stitches to 4". Not there yet...

A shopping trip is in order!