Olympic Gold!

The Olympics are over and everyone has gone home. Being relatively close to Vancouver, there was a bit Olympic Fever here and I decided to compete in the Ravelympics Sock Hockey and Single Skein Speed Skate.


The Challenge: Knit a pair of socks, casting on no earlier than the opening ceremonies, and binding off no later than the end of the closing ceremonies.

The pattern I chose was Twisted Tulip Socks from Interweave Knits Spring 2008.

The yarn I chose was Pagewood Farms Yukon in Turquoise color.

Mods I made included a short 2 x 2 cuff and eliminating the cabled pattern on the foot.

I attended the Cast-On Party at Knot Just Yarn and I was off and running. By the end of the first weekend, I had this:


I didn't feel like this was a very encouraging start, but I wasn't going to give up! A friend & I were headed off for a fiber-filled weekend with lots of knitting time, and I knew if I could turn the heel by the half-way point, I still had a chance. By the time I headed home on Sunday, I had this:


I finished the heel flap that evening, and turned the heels the following morning. I was in the home stretch!

I finished the socks with about 36 hours to spare. Not only did I finish an awesome pair of socks, I proved that it doesn't take me an entire year to knit socks!









A big thank you to the volunteers at Ravelry who organized the event, and to Becky, Laura, and my Knot Just Yarn friends for the encouragement and the laughs.

Ravelympics Update

Well, there are just over 2 days left of the ravelympics and I’m sorely behind. I kinda thought I would be after I added on the Clapotis at the last minute. Oh well. I did finish the baby sweater, and it’s very cute! I have the cuff done of one sock and the clapotis is about 30% done…Fortunately we leave tomorrow for 24+ hours of driving 1600 miles for our vacation. This means about half of that time is knitting time for me. I’m hoping to at least finish the Clapotis.

Summer

Summer is a busy time, which apparently means little time for blogging (for me). I finally finished my Monkey socks for Summer of Socks 2008. So, what happens right smack dab in the middle of SOS? The Ravelympics*, of course! I couldn’t resist signing up. I joined Team Browncoat (if you don’t know what a Browncoat is, check out the TV series Firefly) and signed up for THREE events! I must be insane. It took me almost two months to knit the Monkey socks, but now I’m going to knit Spring Forward for the Sock Put, Mossy sweater for Baby Dressage, AND a Clapotis for Scarf stroke? All in 17 days? My saving graces are the fact that the socks double for SOS and that we’re going on road trip in a couple weeks so I’ll have lots of knitting time on the road.

So far, we’ve had a busy summer of hiking, camping, berry picking, local festivals, and all the great things we love to do in the summer. For my birthday, Cliff surprised me with a trip to Victoria on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. We managed to squeeze in the Royal London Wax Museum, the Royal BC Museum, and our primary reason for going, The Butchart Gardens. I hadn’t been to Victoria in about 20 years, so this was quite a treat. We even found a yarn shop, which is where I bought the yarn for the wavelength scarf and the Mossy jacket, not to mention my first skein of Casbah Sock in the most gorgeous colors.

*For those who don’t know, the Ravelympics is a Ravelry-base self-challenge knitting event that spans the actual Olympics.