Oh, you meant this year's Olympics?

Oh. I see. Well, like many knitters across the world (I'm sure), the Olympic flame has gone out without the rosy glow of victory from holding up a Finished Object for the world to see. Let's see how much I actually did get done on the darn shawl:



Yeah, that's about right. I did get two more pattern repeats done before relegating the project to the Hallway Where Neglected Knits Go To Hibernate. The yarn is a little too itchy or something. Considering that the last lace project I did was in KidSilkHaze, this had a lot to live up to. Now, I love the colors, and I still may come back to this in a few months, just not today.

But I have been busy! I've been spinning up more of this light, airy, squishy chocolate brown downy wool for Eris, and I've made quite a bit of progress on her. Once you divide the sleeves off from the body, the rounds seem to go a lot faster, and it's just mindless knitting at this point. By the time she's finished, it should be late March, just when the temperature jumps back up 80 degrees again and it will be completely impractical. Oh, well. (This came out remarkably clear for being an action shot - the small hand in the photo was deflected from snatching the sweater-in-progress just in time...)


The Sockapaloooza socks have been started, after a few false starts. I really wanted to do something with lace, like the Spearfish socks I did last year, but the color changes in this yarn are a little more contrast-y than the yarn I used for those (LL Baltic Sea), so it wasn't showing up well. So in patterns, I am nothing if not perseverative...



And just for fun, because I wanted to see how it would stripe up, a simple sock that I can work on during conference calls at work, done in Opal Petticoat. A bit girlier than my typical socks, but I'm completely in love with it.



Congratulations to all the successful Olympic knitters, and wear those medals with pride! I'll just get back to the laundry and the neverending lit review now.

And we're off!

In solidarity with other knitters around the world yesterday, I took a small break at 2pm EST to cast on for my olympic project, the Flower Basket Shawl from some handspun laceweight. In my zeal last night, I managed to complete the lower baskets chart and two full repeats of the main pattern. See?



I keep forgetting that shawls are dreadfully deceptive, and that just because I finished two repeats last night means that I could finish 12 repeats in 6 nights without breaking a sweat. The darn thing just keeps getting bigger across, and I need to remember that when I'm feeling overconfident. Stupid hubris.

My sockapaloooza yarn for my sockpal socks finally came yesterday, and it's going to be really hard to send these off. I adore this yarn. It's Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Gold Hill, and it's way more gorgeous than I anticipated. I spent a little time this afternoon winding it up. Mmmm...



Eventually, I'll invest in a real nostepinne, but for now, this'll do. I have a design in mind for the socks, but I still need to graph it out. It'll involve traveling stitches and a little bit of lace.

Olympic snags, and displaying adaptability

We're coming up on the final days of pre-Olympic training here, in preparation for the lace shawl event of the Knitting Olympics. I'm knitting for Team USA, or more specifically, the Team NC subset of Team USA. Supplies are in place, favorite needles are ready to go (birch, mmm...), row counter attached, and the spinning is finished! Voila!

There is a second skein, as well, but since it looks exactly like the first, but maybe 8 inches longer, just blur your eyes to make the image look double. There, you see? Two lovely skeins of 50/50 wool/mohair laceweight, just raring to be made into some fabulous lace. So checking up on the Snowdrop Shawl pattern, we see that we need approximately... let's see... 1200 meters of laceweight yarn.

Oh. I see. So it probably can't be done all that well with, ok, let's count again, um, 520 yards. Meters, last I checked, are bigger than yards. Checking my converter, it looks like I have 477.3 meters. Unless I were to do some drastic modifications to the pattern (like not making half of it, or making a really lovely snowdrop handkerchief), it would be like saying "I have no flour, eggs, or sugar, but I'm sure going to try to make a cake."

So the new Olympic plan is this: Flower Basket Shawl, size 5 needles (since the yarn is somewhere between a true laceweight and a skinny fingering weight, depending on where you measure), a few more repeats until I run out of yarn, preferably after I've finished the thing. Cate, you just finished one of these - any suggestions?

Feeling smug, new plan in mind, I went confidently about my business last week. I've planned low-effort meals (as if that's any different than usual), I've been cross-training with a larger needle project and a couple of socks, and I've done some spinning to get in the proper frame of mind. I am consuming appropriate amounts of caffeine (no, that's pretty typical, too). Everything has been going according to plan. Except for getting my right index finger slammed in the sliding van door the other day.

Crap. And I only knit continental when I'm doing fair isle work. Nothing's broken, though, and everything seems to work fine. The finger is just a little numb along the sides. But maybe numb is good when you're gearing up for an Olympic level of knitting!

On an unrelated note, I have a Sockapaloooza pal, and the yarn is on its way. I have a design in mind, too! Details after swatching.

And I'm not really making a child-size modification to the Jaywalker pattern. That's just a rumor. Really. I mean, 2 pairs are enough, right? Although it's not like the math is hard...