August 2008 Archives

Yeah, I love me some Maxwell Smart. (Why is that show not on TV anymore?!)

Anyway - BR (before the Ravelympics) - I was knitting away like mad on my Leaf Lace Shawl. I reached the tipping point where I was so close to finishing that I just wanted it DONE. Then I took a 2-week break for the sweater, but now I'm back.

I was running very, VERY low on yarn so I figured I better just find a reasonably good place and bind off, even though I hadn't finished all the border rows.

Of course - I ran out. See that little squiggle of yarn up in the left hand corner? Yeah, that's not going to cut it. Luckily a very nice stranger on Ravelry is going to send me a couple yards so I can finish. Hooray!

 

Caesar Augustus Bobicus, our Master of Ceremonies of the First International Ravelympic Games, Summer 2008, hereby declares Zarah a GOLD MEDALIST!  Congratulations!  

Bob also extends his best wishes to the runners-up, who gave their knitting a valiant effort but were unable to finish on time.

(They are sad.  My brother-in-law is also a VERY good sport.)  

Project Specs:  (I'll get some better pictures in a day or two)

Pattern: February Lady Sweater, by Pamela Wynne

Yarn: Dream in Color Classy, 3 skeins, colorway In Vino Veritas

Needle Size: Size 6

Pattern Modifications: Shortened sleeves to make body of sweater longer.  I used every last bit of those 3 skeins of yarn - I'm guessing the pattern is written for someone shorter than me, so they can use that extra yarn for the sleeves and not the body of the sweater.

Time to knit: 16 days - I think I might have been a little off from the "official" Olympic start and end times, but adjusted for the Central Time Zone I really did knit this within the span of the Olympic Games.

Final impressions: Very cute and wearable sweater.  I think I will wear this a lot this fall.  And I love the yarn - I will definitely be getting more Dream in Color Classy for sweaters in the future.  

Emily's shower was this afternoon, so I can finally post about her gifts that I made!

First up, we have the baby quilt - I wasn't sure what to do since she's having a boy. I ended up going with basic squares and pretty much a palette of primary colors. The back is a really cute green polka dotted flannel.

(By the way - Emily still has 5 weeks before her due date, and her baby's head is measuring in the 95th percentile - pray for her!)

I also made a Baby Surprise Jacket out of Socks that Rocks lightweight. (Emily - I don't think I mentioned this - machine wash cold, air dry, okay?) I turned out really cute, and I have yarn for a couple more BSJs already planned. I think I might make it slightly bigger next time (this one is on Size 5s and it think it's just going to be newborn size.)

 

Me and my crazy ideas. Yes, they usually start with a book or article I've read. This time it was "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver. It documents a year-long experiment of her family to live on foods that they grow themselves or that were grown within a close radius to their farm in Virginia. It also gives a lot of interesting and thought-provoking information about the food industry, marketing, etc. At times it got a little Fast-Food-Nation-y for me, but I really like the idea behind it. (Barbara - you had me at homegrown tomatoes! No need for the endless discussion of the fossil fuels needed to plant, fertilize, harvest, and transport bananas to the US for year round consumption!)

Anyway, I live "in town" (not on a farm) and both my husband and I work full time, so I'm being reasonable about all of this, but I am trying to incorporate some ideas from the book into my everyday life. For example - for a long time we have been on a quest to eat less high fructose corn syrup. It's in EVERYTHING!! Even stuff that's not really sweet, like bread. For a while, we'd found certain varieties of Baker's Inn bread at the grocery store that didn't have it, but then they stopped carrying those varieties. Grrrr.

So, I'm going to see just how hard it is to bake bread instead of buying it. Here's my first effort, using this recipe. I mixed it up in about 30 minutes, went out to dinner with some out-of-town friends, then punched it down and baked it after I got home. I let it cool overnight and voila!

Well, I had a completely different post planned for today, but I had an awful day and I didn't want to ignore it.  I'm going to try to blog more often, but it might mean that I don't have pretty pictures of knitting to look at in every post.  Anyway - back to my bad day. 

I started out not feeling very well - I had to rush to get to work on time and was just really flustered.  But then my stomach started twisting into knots due to a series of unpleasant things I had to deal with at work.  Some were completely out of my control but at least one was made worse due to my screw-up, which I really, really hate.  I know that nobody's perfect but apparently I cannot explain that to the pain in my stomach.  Blech.  

I'm starting to unwind a bit now, but I'm really dreading I'm going to start reanalyzing everything once I try to go to sleep tonight.  For now - a bit of knitting and some Olympics.  Ah, that's better.

I must admit, the opening ceremonies for my own personal Ravelympics were nothing compared to the drum-beating, calligraphy-dancing, torch-flying festivities in Beijing. However, I think this year's competition is shaping up nicely.

(For my non-knitting friends and family - "ravelympics" is an once-every-four-years event that coincides with the Summer Olympic Games and is hosted by Ravelry - a website that's sorta like facebook for knitters. The idea is to pick a project and challenge yourself to complete it during the time the Olympic torch is burning at the Games. So, like 16 days or so?)

I'm knitting the February Lady Sweater. I'm past the raglan increases, although my stitch count got off a bit somewhere and the numbers for dividing the sleeves didn't quite match up with the raglan increases - anyone else have that problem? At this point, I don't think it will be really noticeable, but I'll have to see once I get a bit more of the body knitted. Luckily, with this style of sweater, I can try it on as I go!