Gold Medal

My knitting for the Knitting Olympics is complete!!! I finished the second sock from the blue socks yesterday. Now I am attempting to finish the 2nd sock from the other 2 childrens pairs I started before the Olympics. I finished the first one this morning and I am on the heel of the second one now. If I can get it done that will mean I've knit 2 adult pairs and 2 children pairs of socks during the Olympics. In a way I'm glad it's over and I've got my gold medal. I haven't touched my wheels since the Olympics began and I miss them. Tomorrow will be devoted to spinning.

Almost There

I'm close to finishing my Knitting Olympics challenge. I was getting a little worried that I wouldn't finish on time but, despite having to rip over 4 inches on the first sock of the 2nd pair when I realized I had 56 sts insted of 60, I am almost done with the 2nd pair. Once these are done I only have one child pair for a size 2 shoe to complete.


Saturday I had the 2nd and final Fiddlehead mitten class at The Purple Purl. I still have to do the lining but here it is with the thumb complete. When I do the second mitten I am going to do the gusset increases with m1 by picking up the loop between the stitches instead of doing a backward loop onto the needle. I think it's going to give me a much neater result. I'm so anal that if it works I'm actually thinking of either redoing this mitt or giving the mitts away. I bought a Tanis kit for this in purples and after the knitting olympics I intend to knit the 2nd mitt and another pair using the yarn from the kit.

I've decided to change the yarn I'm going to use for my Miko challenge. If you need a reminder of what it's all about you can see it here. When I ordered this yarn from elann.com last week I thought it was a little lighter. On their site it's called dusty wine. To me this looks more like a dusty pink but I like the colour and I think it will work much better than the cotton I had started with. Now I just have to begin all over again. The first month is almost over and I have 91 samples to knit. I should get it done but I'm anxious to get started when the olympic knitting is out of the way.

1st Pair Done

This morning I finished the first pair of socks. I was hoping to finish the second sock earlier in the week but I got side tracked by the Fiddlehead mittens. The second pair using this yarn is for a size 6 shoe so I hope it will be faster to knit. Since I only work a half day on Friday I should get some good knitting time in. My goal is to get past the heel today but I'm not sure I'll get that much knitting done. Only time will tell.

Tomorrow is the second Fiddlehead mitten class at The Purple Purl and I am going to try and resist the temptation to do the lining or start the second mitt until after the knitting olympics is done. I really must finish the second pair of socks in this yarn before the closing ceremonies or they'll never get done. I still have to knit one more pair for my grandson as well so I have lots of knitting ahead of me before I can qualify for a gold medal.

Surprisingly, I Think I Like This

Instead of working on the Knitting Olympcs socks I need to finish, last night at Snb I worked on the Fiddlehead mitten instead. I finished the first mitt except for the lining and thumb. I'm going to put it aside for now until the class on Saturday when we are shown how to pick up the stitches for the lining. I really like the way they are working up and it's a fun knit. I can't even believe I just typed that since colour knitting was so taboo for me. I think when I go back for the second class on Saturday I am going to get a kit for another pair.

Why Can't I Be Monogamous...

You'd think with me trying to get a gold medal in the Knitting Olympics I would be monogamous and only working on the stuff I need to get done by the closing ceremonies. That's not the case right now. So here's the knitting I did yesterday.

I am now past the thumb gusset and I might even get to the end of this mitten, minus the actual thumb, by the next class on Saturday.

I must really be enjoying knitting these mittens because I am seriously considering getting the kit and doing it in all the different colour. I'm also starting to look at coloured knitting a little differently. Now THAT'S scary. Anyone who knows me and my knitting will attest to that.

I am just about to start the ribbing on the first sock and should have this one done today. Then I'll cast on for the second sock. My goal for today is to get past the toe.

Finally, yesterday the February clue came out for the 2010 Lace KALendar. There is a choice of hard love or sweet love. The hard love pattern has a pattern row on every row. The sweet love has resting rows on the wrong side except for the faggoting section. I've never done the hearts this way so I decided to do the hard love. I'm still debating if I want to do one repeat of the sweet love after I do a few more repeats of these hearts. Sadly the lighting is very bad today and the colour is really off.

Tomorrow it's back to work so not as much knitting will get done. However, it's also Snb night so I'll be up later than I usual am on a weeknight since I won't be home to fall asleep in the chair.

Fiddleheads

Yesterday I went to The Purple Purl and took my first class for the Fiddlehead Mittens. I tried taking a colour knitting class many years ago and I hated it. I decided that colour knitting just wasn't for me and gave up. Then I saw the Fiddleheads and I had to make them so I decided to give it another go. After some bumps along the way with the yarn choices (I decided not to do the kit), I finally was back to knitting. The yarn is Mission Falls in purple and lavender and I love the way this is working out. The colour knitting is not as difficult as I remember. I suppose part of that is because I taught myself to knit English style and even though I'm still not very good at it, it works well with stranded knitting. I'm just about to start the thumb gusset and couldn't be more pleased. I hope I continue to feel this way. Kate Atherley is a great teacher and I highly recommend taking one of her classes if you ever get the chance. Now I can't wait to take her math for knitters, designing socks, and finishing classes.

Friday night I cast on the socks for Shayna. I just started the gusset for the heel and hope to get that done today. Despite my dislike of her yarn colour choice I love the way the colours are knitting up. I know Shayna likes the yarn. Now I hope she likes the way they look once they're all done.

Knitting Olympics

I have been really bad about posting lately. I've been busy spinning and knitting. I have a lovely blend of bison, cashmere and silk that I'm spinning on Seraphina (my Matchless) . On Lizbeth (Suzie Pro) I'm spinning some Ashford merino/silk. Finally, I'm spinning a teal corriedale on Rose (Ladybug). Except for the corriedale I'm aiming for lace weight so this helps avoid getting bored since lace takes me so long to spin. I am looking forward to finally finishing the Ashford because I've already spun up a bunch of the cinnamon and this is the last of that colour I have.

I've been busy knitting socks for the grandchildren. I finished 6 pairs for them and sent them off to my daughter last week. They arrived yesterday and I'm waiting for pictures of the socks on their feet. I have one pair for each to finish and then have to knit two pairs for my oldest granddaughter and her friend. She chose the colour. She said she wanted funky in green and yellow. I tried to find yarn that had just green and yellow and I wasn't successful so I asked Maggie from Dyed in the Wool Handmade to dye some for me. I sent Shayna a picture and she loves it. The yarn for both are now wound into centre pull balls and ready to go.


I know that there will be the Ravelympics on Ravelry again for the Winter Olympics. Originally I was going to participate but when I saw that The Yarn Harlot was doing the Knitting Olympics again I had to do it there. You see when they did the Knitting Olympics back in 2006 I tried to get a shawl done but failed because life got in the way and I didn't get a gold medal. I know it might sound silly but I was really upset. So here I am back again to try for another gold metal. I am going to knit the two pairs of socks for GD and her friend because frankly I need some incentive to get these done. Green is my least favourite colour. Frankly I can't stand them but I don't have to wear them just knit them. I'll also finish a pair of socks for my grandson. I work weekdays and tend to fall asleep early in the evenings so this will be a challenge to get done.

Ravelry also has another group for a 2010 Mystery Lace KAL. There will be a different clue for each month of the year. This is the clue for January. The yarn is my own handspun from Fleece Artist Merino/Silk sliver that I bought at Gemini Fibres.


On Saturday I finally finished Revontuli. I made this one from Meilenweit Solo sock yarn. I like the longer colour repeats. I just have to find the time to block it. Since I still have the first Revontuli I knit from Noro to block who knows when that will be.



My final craziness for this year is a challenge from Miko at The Purple Purl. She decided to come up with a knitting challenge similar to the cooking challenge in Julie & Julia. The challenge should you decide to accept it is to knit through all the patterns of a any knitting book of your choice over the next 12 months. The challenge began on February 1, 2010 and will end Jan. 31, 2011. We will have a big bash at The Purl when it is all over and done with. For this challenge I've chosen to knit all the samples in Knitting Lace by Susan E. Lewis. There are 92 samples in all and I'm already behind. I've only done these two so far. I've decided to do them separately and then join them all together when I'm done.


With all this knitting I hope I'll still have time for spinning.