Knitting, Botany, Mycology, Nature, Adventure, and Life... in no particular order.
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Oh well
My goal was to complete a pair of cabled mittens between February 12th and 28th. I figured with about a week for each one how could I go wrong.
Well, I went wrong. It turns out I just didn’t push all that hard and often opted for not knitting instead of tired knitting. (Which is more of a problem with a complicated pattern on little needles with little yarn. Tinking sucks. I avoided it.) I am only just now ready to put the thumb stitches of the first mitten on a holder!
So I’m a Knitting Olympic non-medalist. Next time. I did manage to watch a lot of olympics, finish my shawl, and just enjoy myself overall. I also managed to not need to tear out any part of my mittens. I made it there, I participated. Not everyone gets a medal.
To make up for it, here are a few pictures of my lovely shawl. It’s the Citron pattern from Knitty! (Which I am sure I have mentioned before.) Ta-da!
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Miles to go before I sleep
I am fully immersed in the Knitting Olympics! I have been watching the actual Olympics, I have been working on my mittens, and I have been up on knitting olympics/Ravelympics forums. However I still don’t think I’m in the full swing of things. (If I were I would be much farther along on my first mitten.)
So it is the 4th full day of the Olympics (both kinds) and I am tired. Not of knitting or watching people do amazing things, actually sleepy tired. (From staying up too late watching skating and knitting.) And as I was sitting here, thinking about how it is only now the end of the workday, my favorite poem popped into my head. At least the last couple lines did: “but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.” (For those not in the know: Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost) And it is true.
Here I have ahead of me my French class and then heading home, normally to bed, but probably to watch some Olympics and knit before bed. However, in a longer sense, I still have not finished my Citron shawl (only about 10 rows to go) and the deadline is Friday if I want it for NYC and I am only on round 47 of my first mitten (this includes the cuff… the main mitten is 81 rounds before the joining and I am only on round 7). The possibility of finishing these things seems impossibly far away, though the timing seems impossibly close. Yet I promised myself that I would achieve these things, and I plan to keep that promise.
Still, the whole prospect excites me, and like in the poem, I feel like it is ok to sometimes pause and take a look at where you are and the amazing sites around you, even if for me it is only my knitting or mug of tea or (currently) the snowy evening and the sound of snow shushing off the roof at work and thunking onto the ground below. It reinvigorates me for the journey ahead and the promises I have to keep. I may have miles to go before I sleep, but I’m ready to be on my way.
Note 1: You can be assured this poem will come up again in future posts so you might as well memorize it if you haven’t already. Note 2: I promise my next post will have pictures of knitting if I am going to talk about knitting. I have none with me right now though. Sorry.
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Olympic Dream
I never thought I would get to take part in the winter olympics, but it turns out 2010 is my year. I am going to officially participate in the Knitting Olympics that were founded by the Yarn Harlot. See this year’s announcement (and over 600 comments) here.
What are the Knitting Olympics? What types of events am I planning on competing in? Am I just plain nuts?
Well, you can go and read about the knitting olympics at length, as well as about the version done on Ravelry, the Ravelympics. I was interested a little, but it was really the Yarn Harlot who inspired me. The Knitting Olympics are when, during the Winter Olympics you, during the course of the games, you canst on and complete a whole project that you find difficult or challenging in some way. Be it a large project, a complicated project, new techniques, etc. More skilled knitletes are taking on things like full stranded Norwegian style sweaters and Alice Starmore cabled sweaters. On Ravelry events are names things like “Cable Cross-Country,” “Nordic Colorwork Combined,” and “Sweaterboard Cross.” But basically there are event types for anything you might want to do, and it also doesn’t need to be conceptualized in such a formal way. Some people even take on multiple projects/events… like knitting 2 sweaters!
What kind of olympian do I want to be? That took some thought. Since the Olympics start 6pm PST on the 12th and finish just before midnight PST on the 28th (almost 3am for me!) it is a compact length of time, and I am not too fast a knitter. Part of my decision was around what I have in my stash, part about patterns I have been meaning to knit, and part about choosing something challenging. It came down to socks vs. mittens. I have yet to finish a pair of adult socks, but I also have been planning on knitting the Jared Flood Druid Mittens for over a year. Both would be challenging, both give me an easy halfway mark to get to, both would be a real achievement. My event: the cabled mittens!
This I think answers the third question: I am totally nuts. (However so are hundreds, if not thousands of other knitters.) Then again, if you think about it, so are olympic athletes. think about it.
So, now I have until Friday to finish the Citron shawl I have been working on (15 rows to go! over 200 stitches per row…) so I can wear it to NYC. And I need to work in some other “training” for the Olympics. Some stretching, some rest, and the little bit of pre-olympic limbering up (read gauge-swatching so I know what size needles to use). Also, unlike an actual olympic athlete, I can drink either tea or beer while participating in my event. (Unless there are actual olympic events you can do this in…)
Also, it just so happens, that I love to watch the olympics and have had the schedule on my desktop for a few weeks now. I mean with things like luge, bobsled, the biathlon, downhill, halfpipe, hockey, speed skating, and curling who wouldn’t be excited?! I mean, my guy might not be thrilled by the amount of time I will want to watch things that are not video game related, but he’s very understanding and we’re finally going to set up the other tv, so it should be ok.
So, 9pm this Friday it all begins. The opening ceremony: The lighting of the torch OR The cast on! Who wants in?!
