Ravelympic Wrap-Up

School Daze

Ten Things You Did Not Like About School

P.E.
Cliques
Homework
Early Mornings
Lunch
Interesting Subjects Transformed to Tedious Torture
Pressure
Lockers
People
Seemingly Endless Slog

Fast FO Friday

Pattern: Leaf Shawl from Knitting Lace Triangles
Yarn: Plymouth Galway Heather
Needles: US 8
Rows to edging: 98
Dimensions: 70" x 34"
Time to knit: 10.5 hours
Ravelympics Events: Shawl Relay & Gift Knits Pentathlon

Snip-snip

Sprouting Leaves

The change from lace or fingering and 2.75mm needles to worsted and 5.0mm needles is a welcome one. I jumped on over to my other Ravelympics events. I am past the halfway point on the Leaf Shawl from Knitting Lace Triangles. This is going to be a great birthday present. I love watching the leaves form as I knit them. It makes the ten-row lace repeats quicker to knit. They are so simple to remember, and if my attention wanders, the knitting is easy to read to get back on track. I have made only one modification. Instead of sk2p, I am working s2kp. I prefer the look of that double-decrease for these leaves. This has become my on-the-go knitting. It is suitable for working on while I visit with others, and is easy to set down and pick up without spending too much time figuring out where I am.

Uncharted Territory

I have been steadily making progress in my Ravelympic WIP Wrestling. The EPS FIYC is wonderful company for busy moments, as well as long knitting sessions. Icarus requires more attention, and it is best to knit whole rows before setting it down. This has meant planning time to work on the shawl. My Tuesday had looked like it was going to get away from me and leave me with no lace time. The day contained a few surprises that ultimately allowed me some nice, long blocks of quiet knitting time. The result has been fabulous progress as the lace leaps along the needles. Now I leave the comfort of the charts and move on to the edging. I have not looked at the line-by-line instructions, but I already miss my charts.

I have begun to estimate the time required to complete these two projects. I believe I have between two and three hours left on Icarus. I think I have a good grasp on how long it will take, and it is nice to see that I am so close to finishing. As for the sweater, I do not have as clear an idea. I do not think that I have more than thirty hours left, but that is such a rough guess. I think that is a very generous estimate, and I hope it will be less than this. I have not even begun to think about the time required to knit the leaf shawl. Please, I need someone to tell me I have two more weeks before the Ravelympics end.

If I'm Lion

When I last laid down the amigurumi baby lion, I had finished the head, embroidered face details, and completed and attached the mane. Then it sat and waited for me. I thought about it occasionally, and thought that the project was doomed to remain unfinished when I put it away out of sight. As my nephew's summer break was over, I decided the time had come to complete it.

Robuddy played Zelda while I finished crocheting. At one point, he was swinging the lion limbs by the yarn tails left on for sewing. The closer I got to finishing, the more interested in the project he became. He offered suggestions for colors when I crochet the daddy lion to go with the son. He pointed out that a baby lion would not have a mane. He wished for a crocheted tiger. He thanked me.

Villainous

Ten Favorite Movie Villains

Keyser Soze
Norman Bates
Emperor Palpatine
Baby Jane Hudson
Hannibal Lecter
Dr. Evil
Annie Wilkes
Hans Gruber
Hedley Lamar
The Heathers

Penciling It In

It did not take long to figure out where I needed to continue in the pattern for my EPS FIYC. When I last worked on it, I had a few more rounds before it would be time to join the sleeves to the body. The long rounds were about to get a lot longer, but I did not mind. Attaching the second sleeve was almost a big mess when I tried to be more clever than necessary.

I am enjoying the knitting. I have missed working on this. Forgetting about the weather (yes, forgetting about the weather is best), this is perfect knitting for wherever I am. I have probably thirty, nearly four hundred-stitch rounds of plain knitting before it is time to strand. It seems like a bit much when I think of it that way. Anyway, I had a small task to complete before I reach the color work section. I had not decided how to arrange the colors in the Fair Isle portion of the sweater. A little time with colored pencils and blank charts was all I needed. Now I can return to the joy of mindless stockinette in the round, unless, of course, I decide I am ready for some lace.

Countdown

I have been preparing myself for the start of the Ravelympics. I examined the WIP Wrestling pile, and decided to challenge myself further. Not only am I representing Team Robonia, but also Team Wii Fit. Now lest you think I have gone even crazier, know that I have chosen just one more project, but it qualifies as an entry in two events.

I decided to enter the Shawl Relay and Gift Knits Pentathlon. There are birthdays and other gift-giving occasions on the way, and I decided that some people should get shawls. I have so many lovely patterns. Knitting Lace Triangles has been a part of my library for months, but I have not yet knit from it. That is about to change. The book is a wonderful resource. Evelyn Clark is brilliant. I like that she gives information on knitting the shawls in her book in whatever weight yarn you choose. I think that a worsted weight shawl is the right choice for the first recipient I have in mind. I looked at the chart in the back of the book and found the size I want to make with this weight yarn. I chose the Leaf Shawl and some Plymouth Galway Highland Heather yarn. It will be nice to have a gift finished ahead of the deadline.

Now I relax and wait. The countdown clock is ticking. Ravthletes are filling the Ravelympic Stadium. I am ready.

Still Summer

The summer break has just flown by so quickly. It is hard to think about kids returning to school this week while the weather is still so hot. My nephew will attend a new school this year, and we went with to attend the orientation session yesterday. There was not enough room for us get inside the cafeteria and within hearing range of whoever was speaking, so we just made our way to the classroom. My sister has a boatload of paperwork to wade through.

While summer is not yet over, all of this has me thinking about the knitting goals I set at the beginning of the season. I have made my way through the easiest of them already. I have so many things I would like to begin, but I also want Icarus and the EPS FIYC finished. I fear that if I were to begin some other project, these will get pushed further and further away and risk never being finished.

So, what am I to do? Enter, the Ravelympics! Maybe you thought I would use this time to begin and complete something new. However, I have decided to compete in WIP Wrestling. I am using this event to help me make my way through these two beloved projects that deserve to be finished. To prepare, I must see where my progress stalled out so long ago. If I see that I am closer to the finish line than I thought, I may enter another event. I am considering the Shawl Relay. I think it has been watching the fast shawling of some other knitters that put this last idea into my head.

Careful Joining

The other night, I cast on the 238 stitches for my sister's top. I joined, hoping that I had taken sufficient care to avoid twisting, and began knitting. A few stitches before the end of the first round, I saw more stitches than required for the final repeat. I studied my work and pattern and realized that I had messed up thirteen stitches into the round. I made a mistake when I read the pattern. Anyway, after much tinking, I was back to knitting, but it had killed my mojo for the night. When I picked it back up to knit, I was worried that I had twisted the cast on, but kept going. I am pleased to report that everything was fine, and before long I had finished my first repeat of the charted lace.

This is a great pattern, and I love that it is knit in the round with minimal finishing. Still, as I knit, I occasionally think of what I would have done differently if I had written the pattern. I am not talking about errors, but about small changes in wording or charts. For example, with this pattern, I would have preferred there to be two charts rather than just one. If it had been written up that way, I probably would have not messed up my knitting. Then again, I could have just paid more attention to the instructions (which are quite clear), and I would have been fine.

My progress on Annie stopped soon after beginning that second chart repeat. Last week was a wee bit bumpy. We had a small plumbing issue. It was not as complicated to fix as we thought it would be, but what it lacked in difficulty, we made up for with dread. Having round-the-clock running water rocks!